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Canon HD camcorder budget

RebootD

RebootD

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 27, 2009
737
0
NW Indiana
Hello all,

I just received a request for training videos and I have no equipment of my own. (I've done filming/editing in the past at a previous employer so I have some skills) and to make a profit I need to keep my cost below $900. (I also own FCE 4 already) Of course I would love a Canon A1s or Sony FX7 but I don't see this turning into enough projects to justify the cost.

I figure I need at least
1. Camcorder (preferably either HDV or AVCHD)
2. External Mic
3. Filters for indoor WB (mostly dim conference room with projectors)

Now I read the highly-ranked Canon HV30 only records at 1440x1080 in 16:9 mode, does that affect output onto an HDTV? (Since most 1080 sets are 1920x1080?) Also the SDHC based models from Sony/Canon record straight to standard HD resolutions, but seem to have inferior quality in picture and compression.

Is the lower resolution a hindrance to anyone here on the HV30, or have the newer HF11/200 models by Canon fixed the compression woes of earlier models?

Any suggestions welcome.

edit: I also run a 2.4 alum imac /4GB but plan on bumping up to a Mac Pro soon, any comments on the iMac's ability to edit compressed AVCHD video welcome as well.
 
$1,500 for 3 days? where do you live?

those prices are way too high.

1440x1080 is standard for HDV, the pro-sumer XH-A1 shoots this as well... it is a non-issue.

AVCHD is not edited natively by FCE/FCP. It is transcoded when importing. This will require a lot of HD space.
 
bigbossbmb said:
$1,500 for 3 days? where do you live?

those prices are way too high.

1440x1080 is standard for HDV, the pro-sumer XH-A1 shoots this as well... it is a non-issue.

AVCHD is not edited natively by FCE/FCP. It is transcoded when importing. This will require a lot of HD space.
Click to expand...

I'm in NW Indiana but I found a couple places in Downtown Chicago that rented out. I'm traveling to MI for the video shoot so I would need at least 3 days of rental to get there and back (two day shoot). Maybe they just over quoted me =(

I thought about the AVCHD issue with transcoding, thank you for stating that. But if I don't rent (if anyone knows of places with decent pricing in NW Indiana let me know!) then the HV30 seems the best HDV camera for my price range. (I've been weary of the SDHC / HD models).
 
I'm just putting together my kit for making a few videos a year related to my business. I've done a few before in DV format, now I'm trying HD. This is just to let you know what someone else did, not necessarily a recommendation.

I got a Canon HG20. So far the pictures are great. I've only just begun editing. No results yet. I got a 16GB SDHC card. The work flow I've tested out is to acquire video with the camera, copy desired scenes to the memory card, copy files from the card to the computer for backup and then delete scenes from the camera. With the disk based camera it seems not easy to copy video directly from camera to computer. You can do it if you copy the entire contents of the disk at once. To my knowledge, Canon doesn't make it easy for you to select scenes this way. There is a somewhat complicated directory structure and useless file names and if you mess up a directory you can lose everything. Using the memory card is easy and I have no problem with that.

I got a DM-100 external microphone. This is the canon shotgun. It works pretty well. I did notice that if I play back through a 5.1 audio system there is a little rumble coming from the subwoofer only. I'm guessing that this is the disk drive and that if I record directly to the memory card this won't happen. You may also want to consider a different external mic. I've since read that the Azden SGM-1X is highly recommended.

If you haven't done this yet you need to consider how you will use the resulting video. There is not an easy way to distribute HD video. My plan is to export from iMovie to 720P video. This will be distributed on data DVDs to be played back on a computer, not a DVD player. People will use either large monitors or projectors to view these videos. From what I've seen 720P has plenty of resolution for my purposes. This also keeps the file sizes smaller.

My goal is to produce a small number (<10) of short videos (most 5 - 10 minutes, the introductory one might be 20 minutes) that presents and explains our technology, gives examples of its use and teaches the users how to get better results.

Of course, the original video will be shot at highest quality in case I ever decide to go up to 1080P.

This probably won't affect me much as I'll shoot mostly with a tripod but some of the Canons use a rolling shutter (as do others). This is not an issue except that it won't work with Apple's cool anti-shake technology.
 
Well I thought about it some more and I would like to own a camcorder anyway, so right now (thanks to the posts here) I'm leaning heavily on the HV30 for easy editing and storage of the HDV tapes.

I also found a couple of external MICs from BH Photo that looked appealing as well, but the Rode models seem to be minimum $150. Any suggestions there?
 
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