Video Camera

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I want to get a Movie Camera. I am partial to Canon. We raise and show
miniature horses. I want the camera to take to shows to take video of the
events and for training and sending to prospective buyers. Can someone
suggest a good medium priced video camera and what I need in the way of
software to accomplice this.
I am using XP Home SP2 Gateway 7200x 1gig mem 200gig hard drive. 3.2
processor. Thanks
 
Here is a good site for camcorder reviews:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/d/Reviews&level_b=Camcorder.htm
Canon/Sony. Difficult to go wrong with them.
I would certainly go with the MiniDV tape format. Nothing less.
Your computer has all the resources to download the video from the tape,
edit the tape and copy to a DVD disk to distribute the DVD to prospective
buyers.
To download the tape to your computer, you just use Movie Maker 2, part of
XP, or the software that will be supplied with the camcorder.
To edit the tape (movie) once stored on the computer you again use Movie
Maker 2 or the software that will be supplied with the camcorder.
Now you have a "movie" file on your computer.
You need to copy it to a DVD disk.
To do this you need a DVD drive.
You don't mention that you have such in your computer.
If you don't have this, you will need to purchase such.
Look for an external DVD drive that can be connected to your computer via a
Fire Wire port (you need this port to connect your camcorder to your
computer in order to download the content of the camcorder tape to your hard
drive) or a USB2 port (forget about USB1, too slow for video).
Once you have this DVD drive connected to your computer, you can copy the
movie from your hard drive to a DVD disk.
To do this you will need software. Widely used are Roxio and Nero copying
software.
 
Thanks Yves, yes I do have two DVD drives double layer for burning. I do have
Nero that came with the computer and just got the upgrades to 6. something
(they are free updates at their site). I also have Roxio on my old computer.
Do you think one is better then the other? I can upgrade my Roxio, but that
will be about $50 for the 7.something. Could you recommend a minidv. And what
are the extra things that I will need. I know you always need something extra
so everything works. I mean like an extra battery disks (what size) or
whatever else you would suggest. Thanks for the help.
 
I think you have everything you need as far as hardware and software. Nero
or Roxio?
I use Roxio, a friend use Nero. They both get you there. I don't see a big
difference between the two. Nero may be a little friendlier to use and since
you have it I would stick with it.
I don't think I would want to "recommend" a camcorder.
I have used Sony TRV10, TRV20, TRV50 (these are already discontinued
models....anything over two years in this field is old and over three is
senile) and very pleased with all three. All are MiniDV. Have been tempted
with new Sony models recording on DVD instead of MiniDV but the quality is
just not quite there yet. So pick a Canon or a Sony MiniDV in your price
range and right now good very good quality is from $800 to 1200, and good
quality from $600 to 800.
I can tell you what I do not like. The pocket size. They are nice to take
along but I have a hard time working with them. The LCD is just too small
for me. When shooting video you want to look at the LCD. Particularly when
you are shooting action, like in your horse shows. A large LCD allows you to
look at the action on the LCD and even lift your eyes from it to see were
the action will be going on and move your camcorder smoothly toward it. You
can't do this with a small LCD and you sure can't do this using the
viewfinder, unless you are a pro camera person.
 
Well I can see I have a lot to look at. Is it important to have a firewire
port? I noticed on some of the models it just has a usb port.
Thanks for all the information.
 
Yes, USB is now coming on camcorder. It is USB 2 and will transfer almost as
fast as firewire. So no big difference here.
If you have a desktop and you have USB 1 port, it will work but the transfer
will be quite slow. You can purchase a USB 2 card and install it in your
computer.
Easy enough to do. No software to install. XP will recognize the new card
and install it automatically.
A major problem with camcorder still remains: using them in low light
situation. So if you plan using one for interior photography look closely at
the reviews on this item.
 
Personally I wouldn't use USB even 2 for video work. Firewire was designed
specifically for video work, it can cope with the continuous transfer of
large amounts of data and you can control the cam from the editing software.
USB2 although speed rated faster than firewire, it is burst speed rather
than continuous and you'll find you have problems when working with dv-avi
files. These are the best ones for video work.USB 1.1 will not work with
video capture in anyway. Cams may be described as having dv/ieee1394 or
i-link which are all firewire by different names. Any dv cam should have
firewire.
Most cams these days have usb for download of stills taken by the memory
card, which you can't do using the firewire connection.
I would certainly go with Johns recommendation for Minidv, still the best
for quality, and as he's already mentioned size, the best thing is to go to
a shop and handle a few cams and see which you like the feel of and then ask
for help with those models.
I'm a canon man, prefering their colour rendition, whereas John having used
Sony's may well look at a canon image and wonder why it doesn't look right
to him.
You ask about accessories, a normal battery, once worn in will last about
45/60 mins with the viewfinder and most models you can get a longer lasting
battery, but beware, bigger batteries mean more weight, which may throw the
nice balance of the cam out. Get an nd or uv filter, best way to protect the
lens. A tripod is worth it's weight in gold for nice steady pictues,
especially if you want to sell people a horse, so get a good one, preferably
with a fluid head, but if you can't run to that, check them out for rigidity
and how smooth the pan is.
Also look for a cam with dv-in, so you can archive your material back to
tape, still the best and cheapest way for doing this.
If you get a cam with av-in as well, you can use it for doing things like
converting vhs tapes to the pc, recording the tv etc.
Do not be swayed by the vast digital zooms, they are useless.

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
Laird of Glencairn
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com
 
Thanks for all the information, I appreciate it. Do you have a recommondation
on a Canon. All my other stuff, printers, digital camera, scanners are all
Canon. I like there products. Not saying that any of the others are bad. Just
want a basic one for taking video's like I mentioned to aid in the training
process and taking video at shows. I am not going to be a professional. I
also don't know anything about video camera's. Learning a lot from John and
Yves though. (Also from the others that answer questions here). I appreciate
the help.
 
I think that you will be surprised with the new camcorders using USB 2 and
full control of the camcorder with the software provided. At least this is
what I have been reading.
I don't know how well they would work on USB 1
but there is no doubt that they work well with USB 2.
I certainly agree with you that firewire has been the way to work with
camcorders (only way I can work with my camcorders) but things are changing.
 
Yves, yes some of the latest cams are using USB2 with cam control, but only
from the package they come with, the problems we then get are people
expecting that they can plug a usb2 cam in and use movie maker to capture,
just isn't happening yet.
Capture has to be done in real time, so USB 1 is a definate no.
I'm still in disgreement that they *work well* with USB 2
Most of the USB2 cams work best with compressed capture to dvd disc and the
like, where they have a smaller data stream to pass to the pc and can handle
it better. If you want quality then so far dv-avi still rules supreme, I
expect this will change when we get more hd technology along the lines of
the sony fx-1 etc.

Sorry for calling you John.....

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
Laird of Glencairn
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com
 
Walt, as Yves has already said, I can make a recommendation on what I like,
but it may not be what you like.
Go out to a shop, have a look at some, hold them with a battery in, it makes
a big difference on weight, and see how easy the controls are to get to, how
it feels in your hand etc and if you come back with " I like such and such
cam and this model was nice, I'll do my best to let you know the pros and
cons of those models and then you can make a more informed decision, but in
all honesty, unless you buy the real cheapy models from any of the
sony/canon/panasonic ranges then you won't go far wrong.

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
Laird of Glencairn
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com
 
I have not seen camcorders with USB 2 other than a friend who has a new Sony
model recording on DVD.
He seems please with it. Will have to give one a try and really compare--too
much subjectivity in comparing somebody else movies with mine when the
content is so different.

Previous Sony models recording on DVD were not that impressive so I have
stayed with the MiniDV tape.
 
Thanks guys for all the help and information. By the way, Graham, I am the
one asking the question about the Sony camera in the video section that you
have been answering. Thanks for the imput there also.
 
Yves, to be honest, unless you want record and play then it's no use buying
a dvd camcorder. The codecs used now are quite good and there is much less
blockiness in encoding the mpeg2 stream, but if you want to edit it, you are
limited to which app you can use, although more are now available, and what
you can edit to, as mpeg file structure is such that on the dvd cams I
believe i frmaes are every 15 frames, and these are your edit points. Plus
if you don't have a good editing app, you end up re-encoding the mpeg file
which is like taking a jpeg still, changing it and then saving as a jpeg
file again etc....
Mpeg streams are around 20 times less than dv-avi, so easily transported
through usb2.

Graham

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
Laird of Glencairn
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com
 
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