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Mini DV vs. SD cards and advice needed

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puppylove5825

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
4
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I am looking to purchase a video camera. I am wondering which one is better, one that takes mini DV tapes, or one with SD cards? I have tried searching the net for this and have not seen to many reviews and the ones I have seen have been mixed, so I would appreciate any advice you may have.

I also want to know if anyone has any advice on decent inexpensive camcorders? My range is probably going to be up to $250, but if it is a little more then go ahead and post it better.
 
puppylove5825 said:
I am looking to purchase a video camera. I am wondering which one is better, one that takes mini DV tapes, or one with SD cards? I have tried searching the net for this and have not seen to many reviews and the ones I have seen have been mixed, so I would appreciate any advice you may have.

I also want to know if anyone has any advice on decent inexpensive camcorders? My range is probably going to be up to $250, but if it is a little more then go ahead and post it better.
Click to expand...

Having a tapeless workflow is a massive timesaver especially if the camera records into quicktime format.
 
puppylove5825 said:
I am looking to purchase a video camera. I am wondering which one is better, one that takes mini DV tapes, or one with SD cards? ....
Click to expand...
These are two very different animals. mini DV has been the choice of the home videographer for years. However, quote a bit of professional video has been shot on mini DV. Spike Lee shot a theatrical movie, Bamboozled, on mini DV. SD? Well, it is inexpensive.
 
If that is your budget, then MiniDV.

For $350 to $400 you can start to get into some of the 60GB hard drive based cameras.

MiniDV is MiniDV. Been around, pretty easy to work with.

Hard drive cameras tend to be .mp4 or AVCHD.

.mp4 is pretty easy to work with. AVCHD can require a decent computer to edit on.
 
snouter said:
For $350 to $400 you can start to get into some of the 60GB hard drive based cameras.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's a good idea for that price. But it's true that if you're going to use it a lot then the benefits HDD/card format over tape from a time perspective are massive. On the other hand, if you're editing once in a blue moon, it doesn't matter much.
 
I am not going to be using it everyday. I mean probably for like filming stuff like my dogs or other stuff. And there is a convention I am going to be going to that I want to film some of it. But really the con is the main reason I want one.

Does anyone have any advice on decent ones?
 
If you are really only going to use it like once every 2 months or something, then Mini DV should be fine.

If you have never used tape before, it's pretty easy, but a couple of quick pointers, mostly involving timecode.

Start rolling tape about 15 seconds before you need it. Let it roll maybe 30 seconds after you are through shooting.

When you want to shoot more on that tape, be sure to rewind back into that tail you left at the end. So if there is 30 seconds of extra footage at the end, rewind to about the 20 second point (in the timecode, before the previous shot ends), and then roll from there picking up the timecode again.

Argh, that's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but hopefully it makes enough sense. Basically you want to leave buffer at the head and tail and keep the timecode contiguous.

I don't know much about cameras in that price range, but any Sony or Canon or Panasonic should be just fine.

One more thing. Try to use the same brand of tape always. It may not be any sort of issue now, and maybe it never was, but the tape surface lube differs between brands, and it's just less gunky for the heads if you use the same brand of time always.

One more idea... one of those Flip HD cameras?
 
snouter said:
If you are really only going to use it like once every 2 months or something, then Mini DV should be fine.

If you have never used tape before, it's pretty easy, but a couple of quick pointers, mostly involving timecode.

Start rolling tape about 15 seconds before you need it. Let it roll maybe 30 seconds after you are through shooting.

When you want to shoot more on that tape, be sure to rewind back into that tail you left at the end. So if there is 30 seconds of extra footage at the end, rewind to about the 20 second point (in the timecode, before the previous shot ends), and then roll from there picking up the timecode again.

Argh, that's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but hopefully it makes enough sense. Basically you want to leave buffer at the head and tail and keep the timecode contiguous.

I don't know much about cameras in that price range, but any Sony or Canon or Panasonic should be just fine.

One more thing. Try to use the same brand of tape always. It may not be any sort of issue now, and maybe it never was, but the tape surface lube differs between brands, and it's just less gunky for the heads if you use the same brand of time always.

One more idea... one of those Flip HD cameras?
Click to expand...

those flip hd cameras remind me of my nokia n95 video camera. no optical zoom and stuff=P

EDIT: However, despite shooting only at 640*480 the video quality is very good compared to my mobile phone. It's a nice camera to bring in the pocket everyday to shoot something unexpected, like a tsunami or a planecrash into a building (just kidding) =P i would get one of those for me. also the MP4 file is very easy to work with and pretty much compressed already if you don't want to edit

and it uses AA batteries. Very Nice feature

i was considering getting a camera in a range of 200$ - 300$ usd new for some fun video recording. but some guy appeared selling his canon hf200 with still 1 year of warranty for 350$ including a 4GB SDHC card and the transport bag, so i spent the extra money, but for casual recording i guess you shouldn't spend much money =)
 
neonkru said:
It's a nice camera to bring in the pocket everyday to shoot something unexpected, like a tsunami or a planecrash into a building (just kidding) =P
Click to expand...

Excuse me, I do not know how you think that statement is funny. I am from NY and thousands of people died. If you think that is funny I think you need some drugs or something. So just do not post in this thread again.


As for a flip cam, I want something better than that.
 
puppylove5825 said:
Excuse me, I do not know how you think that statement is funny. I am from NY and thousands of people died. If you think that is funny I think you need some drugs or something. So just do not post in this thread again.


As for a flip cam, I want something better than that.
Click to expand...

i'm sorry if i hurt your feelings. this is not my intention, and i'm not being ironic about haiti's catastophre. i would say this before that happen. if you're reffering to that last event.

once again i didn't mean to be harmful for anyone. although i won't stop posting because of that. i won't just say something like that again in respect to you and who may feel harmed by that.

Yeah i thought you would want something better than that, i was just saying that it could be handful having a pocket camera for some situations you don't expect. sometimes i need to take a photo or a video from an unexpected situation, so i use my mobile phone. the quality isn't that great but it shoots in mp4 h264 video with 640*480. with good light it will get some nice videos.

here is an example from shooting with my mobile phone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnu4Te2KgKI

if something like that is enough for you a flip camera would shoot even better than that
 
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