This is going majorly OT, sorry about that, ignore this if you're not interested in the video discussion.
Milk is Tasty has a good point on the fact that storage and compression formats are different, but they are highly aligned. DV Tape uses DV compression, is the least compressed of consumer level, and the best quality, but the longest workflow to ingest in many ways.
Well, the point was HDD uses all kinds of stuff. DV, HDV, AVCHD etc.
Everyone is better off if people understand that formats and storage devices are two completely different things.
HD HDD camcorders tend to use MPEG 4 and h264 (both related technologies) the give great compression, but are a bit harder to work with.
Yup, but at the low end, it's DV (not sure how many cameras using DV are around right now though, I've never been much interested in small cameras
)
MiniDV does not compress MPEG2, it compresses using DV (1:5)
Another reason tape is going to be better for most anyone with a glimmer of video production in their eyes.
MPEG2 compresses in a way that most systems can not edit directly, another kink in the workflow that uses it.
Yeah, basically, it's a JPEG kind of algorythm, compressing each frame individually. In any case, as long as you can make an digital intermediate, interframe problems aren't that big (in my experience), but yeah, DV is pretty nice.
No I realize that, I was just saying that perhaps the MPEG2 files on DV Tape are less compressed (due to manufacture design) than they are on the disk based systems for sake of space on the hard disk.
This is just a guess, not a fact of course. They could be the same exact compression.
Do you know? I'd be interested. Of course this probably varies manufacturer to manufacturer, model to model anyway, so it may be a difficult question to answer.
Yeah, actually they do, DV video gets pretty huge at the normal bitrate, so, say, a 60GB drive wouldn't last very long. I've never owned a DV HDD camera though, so I'm not at all sure what kind of options you have. I have however seen that it's possible to cram something like 40 hours of footage into a 60GB drive, and that's just insanity, I can't imagine how horrible that must look, but I guess you just have to do something like that, since it's a fixed drive (and people who use it probably want to be able to shoot a few hours of footage without having to clean the drive). I'm sure AVCHD looks a lot better on HDD (more effective compression at lower bitrates), but to be honest, I wouldn't touch any of those cameras with a ten foot pole. At the top of the consumer level you're beginning to get close to second hand entry level semi-pro (in price), and that's simply another world (albeit usually a bit big for vacations, hehe). Look at the DVX100 for example. I'd rather buy one of those second hand than even looking at anything at the consumer level. That is if you're not interested in just something to very cheaply document family life. In any case, I think our grandchildren would be happier if we'd film their future parents with a DVX100, or maybe even an 8mm camera
