Back in the day, I had a garden variety tape based camcorder. I broke it when the wind blew it over and it landed on a rock. I went and got a hard drive based camcorder and it works fine. Yesterday I found an old minidv tape labled retirement ceromony. as luck would have it, I found the video of when I retired form the Marine Corps. So now I went looking on craigslist for a cheap recorder to get the footage into my mac so I can dump it to a dvd. That part is easy. Put in a little work and you can find them for less than 100.00. Once I got this far I had a thought. If I'm going to purchase an out dated video recorder, at least get one that I can get some use beyond getting this old footage into my computer. So knowing that they are not going to be as good as a modern hard drive based camcorder, which mini-dv cam corders were the best.
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Mini DV question
- Thread starter rdsii64
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What are you talking about, Willis? mini DV has been and is still used to record professional video. Some professional videographers are now using SSD-based camcorders to record video. Can you name anyone who uses HDD-based camcorders to record anything more professional than dance recitals and birthday parties?
Well I have a Canon zr800 which I only paid about $250 at BB in about 2007. It's done a great job for me and plays nice with iMovie and fce. The only feature it doesn't have is analog passthrough and it can't be used at the same time as my FW hard disk, but that's mostly Apple's fault.
No, that's Canon's fault. None of Canon's devices adhere to the Firewire protocol very strictly. All other manufacturers can do it, but Canon has never fully implemented the IEEE1394 standard. They don't always perform properly when having to share a Firewire bus.
-DH
Wow I didn't know that
I was unaware that MiniDv is still in use in the professional world. This may turn out better than I thought.
Canon HV20,30 or 40
depending on your budget, you can go HD with mini dv and still dump that SD footage that you have.
I have a canon hv 30 and love it.
you might be able to find a canon hv20 for the cheap....
depending on your budget, you can go HD with mini dv and still dump that SD footage that you have.
I have a canon hv 30 and love it.
you might be able to find a canon hv20 for the cheap....
Current options are pretty limited, especially in HD.
But I have a Panasonic I bought a few years ago and I've been quite happy with it. Sony also made some really good ones. I think they recently discontinued their last consumer MiniDV camcorder.
The prosumer cameras are not typically pocket sized, and are pretty pricey.
But I have a Panasonic I bought a few years ago and I've been quite happy with it. Sony also made some really good ones. I think they recently discontinued their last consumer MiniDV camcorder.
The prosumer cameras are not typically pocket sized, and are pretty pricey.
Buy one, use it to capture your video and return it the same day. Not rocket science here.
Any "pro" who uses DV nowadays isn't a pro. Even the DVX100 is getting long in the tooth at this point and for what those things still cost, you can get a much better non-DV camera.
Any "pro" who uses DV nowadays isn't a pro. Even the DVX100 is getting long in the tooth at this point and for what those things still cost, you can get a much better non-DV camera.
Not every broadcasting network (national and regional) in this world is broadcasting HD and where I work, we use Digi Beta and DV as a medium for capturing for a nationally broadcasted candid camera show. But I might agree on the pro-part, as sometimes I think I work with amateurs (which might make an amateur too I think).
Well 'hidden camera' type shows don't really matter as most people expect to see less than stellar video coming from a hidden camera. If it was shot on an EX-3 or something it would probably look stupid
And yes... we work in an industry filled with shtheads
Well 'hidden camera' type shows don't really matter as most people expect to see less than stellar video coming from a hidden camera. If it was shot on an EX-3 or something it would probably look stupid
And yes... we work in an industry filled with shtheads
Well, the cameras (VX2000 and others) are not really hidden in most cases anyway. But I know of some networks, that use DV cameras for their news segments or video journalists.
I wonder, if any other industry has such a high percentage of dicks.
I always wonder the same thing. But strangely, despite all the jerk-offs I have to deal with on a daily basis, something about having a creative job keeps me coming in every day.
When my Canon miniDV camcorder croaked, I upgraded to an HD model (Vixia HV30) that also uses miniDV tape. This format might not otherwise have been my first choice but gives me access to my old tapes, which was critical. I believe there are also slight quality advantages to tape versus memory cards, because the latter use more compression.
I initially resisted the boost to HD for cost reasons, but eventually sucked it up. After seeing the improvement, I realized how plain stupid my concerns had been. There's no way I would recommend to anyone NOT investing in HD. Spending money on SD these days is like buying 8-track tapes.
One warning - it's getting harder and harder to find tape-based cameras.
MiniDV is still a very common standard. A common misconception is that you must buy HDV tapes to record in high definition but in actuality you can record high definition onto MiniDV tapes so the smarties like me buy MiniDV to save tons of money.
People actually think you need special tapes to record HDV? Wow... I am glad I am in the post world. I get to hide in my suite away from the retards and grind my teeth saying "did they shoot nat sound?", "Hold the camera still for 2 ****** seconds for this broll!", and "this DP sucks, it's out of focus".
Videographers need to understand this basic premise:
DV TAPES, mini or otherwise, ARE JUST TAPE DRIVES.
Remember those tape drives from the 1980s and on? Yea, this is the same stuff.
Its just like a hard drive, only its stored on magnetic tape not platters. And to read data, it must be brought to the playhead instead of the other way around like in HDDs.
Mini-DV is not a format really, its just a branding of small tape drives. (ok it is a format, but im trying to be more layman than anything here)
DV TAPES, mini or otherwise, ARE JUST TAPE DRIVES.
Remember those tape drives from the 1980s and on? Yea, this is the same stuff.
Its just like a hard drive, only its stored on magnetic tape not platters. And to read data, it must be brought to the playhead instead of the other way around like in HDDs.
Mini-DV is not a format really, its just a branding of small tape drives. (ok it is a format, but im trying to be more layman than anything here)