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Best Youtube Camcorder?

carve

carve

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 25, 2006
645
3
Hey all, I was wondering what the best youtube camcorder is. I don't care how much it is, $400 and under would be nice. I need it to work with Tiger and transfer over pretty quickly. I would be likely shooting 12 minute vids on it. A question about the miniDV camcorders too. How exactly do you put them onto your mac? Do you just plug it in and it will transfer all of the files onto your mac? Also about the full sized DVD camcorders, once you record onto the DVD on the camcorder all you do is take it out and stick the DVD into your computer or do you have to do the same thing such as hooking it up to your computer? One last question, what do you guys think about hard drive camcorders? Good bad? ok? I am also looking for the speediest transfer time to get it on my mac, I don't want to wait an hour just to get a 10 minute video on to my mac. Thanks everyone! If you have any suggestions that would also be great! Thanks everyone! macluver101
 
macluver101 said:
A question about the miniDV camcorders too. How exactly do you put them onto your mac? Do you just plug it in and it will transfer all of the files onto your mac?
Click to expand...

Even though miniDV cameras record digital signals onto the tape, it is not in a format that is directly computer-readable. What you do is connect the camera to the computer using a Firewire cable, and then fire up a capture program like iMovie. You click "Import" and iMovie commands the camera to start playing the tape, and records from it like a VCR. Except that it's copying the digital stream so you're making a 100% digital copy onto the computer. Importing a 10-minute video takes 10 minutes. The files captured onto your computer will be "DV" streams wrapped in a QuickTime movie, and will be huge (3.6 megs per second of video captured), but this will get you the best possible quality. This is what you want if you intend to do a lot of editing and then compressing, say to burn on a DVD.

Contrast this to a digital camera, for example, like the Canon PowerShot series that the poster above recommends. When you record a video clip, it is saved onto the memory card as a video file (DSC00001.MOV or something) and you just copy it from the memory card to your computer. The transfer is fast (as fast as you can copy a file), but the resolutions offered by digital cameras are generally poorer and there is a fair bit of video compression applied to the video in order to keep the size down so it can fit on a memory card. If you need to edit the video, that worsens the quality even more.

That said, YouTube videos aren't really known for high quality picture, so it's entirely up to you.
 
direct import from camera to iMovie with no tape

As I do not know how to ask a new question (apologies from an oldie) I add this one to the conversarsation initiated under:
Originally Posted by macluver101
A question about the miniDV camcorders too. How exactly do
you put them onto your mac? Do you just plug it in and it
will transfer all of the files onto your mac?

I am usung in a scientific lab some of my old G4 computers with a modern digital sony video camera. I am recording directly some videos of scientific stuff on one of the the G4s via a firewire into iMovie. I can do this only in one of three otherwise apparently identical Macs. I have the choice to use import from iSight or from the DV camera. Only in the one that works I can then click on "importing" while in the other two the button is not active and I cannot click to activate it.

In all three computers the iMovie window tells me " no tape in the camera" (I know of course this as I did not put a tape!).

I have re-installed iMovie 2005 (past of ALife disks) but with no changes.
Same camera some connector same program.

Any idea of what control may enable me to import for all my G4 computers directly even with with no tape in the camera?

Thanks

Marcello
 
notjustjay said:
Even though miniDV cameras record digital signals onto the tape, it is not in a format that is directly computer-readable. What you do is connect the camera to the computer using a Firewire cable, and then fire up a capture program like iMovie. You click "Import" and iMovie commands the camera to start playing the tape, and records from it like a VCR. Except that it's copying the digital stream so you're making a 100% digital copy onto the computer. Importing a 10-minute video takes 10 minutes. The files captured onto your computer will be "DV" streams wrapped in a QuickTime movie, and will be huge (3.6 megs per second of video captured), but this will get you the best possible quality. This is what you want if you intend to do a lot of editing and then compressing, say to burn on a DVD.
Click to expand...
That is exactly how I'm doing my youtube videos. I hook up my Canon ZR960 via firewire and let iMovie use the ZR960 as the direct video source and the video files are streaming directly to iMovie.

The only problem I'm getting is not able to record the audio from my M-Audio Fast Track USB interface. Though I choose the Fast Track audio interface from the iMovie's voice over, the audio is still from the camcorder's microphone instead from the Fast Track USB interface.

Any tips and suggestions?
 
netdog said:
For YouTube?

I use my Nano. Looks great. Always with me.
Click to expand...

The iPod nano (and the iPhone) are both totally adequate by YouTube quality standards. Actually, they're pretty awesome for that purpose.
 
bluesguitar65 said:
I made a youtube video using my new Canon ZR960 miniDV camcorder. I'm comparing it with my macbook's iSight webcam. How is the video and audio quality? Should I keep it or return it based on this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLYJ8omcCrQ
Click to expand...


Better than you'll get from your iSight, but based on quality alone I'd say return it. The fact that the ZR960 records to tape gives you a big advantage (long recording time) over cheaper camcorders, but if you aren't going to take advantage of the benefits of tape, there are cheaper devices that I think will give you the same quality.

As for audio, seems pretty good, but it's really not possible to judge with any degree of accuracy when all we have to go by is an electric guitar - we don't know what it's sounding like coming out of the amp.
 
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