video camera for editing [Archive]

Arky

19th November 2002, 16:55

If you can afford it, you should definitely get a DV-cam. By this, I mean a digital camcorder using the "MiniDV" tape format.

I strongly suggest you do not buy a DVD-cam, or a "MicroDV" camcorder (Sony make these).

The reason why you should buy a "MiniDV" camcorder is that:

#) Almost every video editing application supports this format

#) MiniDV footage can be edited with negligible quality degradation

#) It is the best established consumer/prosumer format

#) The MiniDV format tapes are sensibly priced now.

The reason you should not buy MicroDV or DVDcam camcorders is that they record directly to MPEG2 format. This means there are several disadvantages, in comparison to MiniDV:

#) Only 2 applications (that I am aware of) directly support capture of MicroDV MPEG2 footage - namely, Sony's own MovieShaker software, and Pinnacle's Studio 8 (which ain't bad, but you will quickly outgrow it, and it doesn't have more complex logging, which, believe me, you will want in the future). Obviously, capture isn't a problem for DVDcam disks, since your DVD-Rom will read these.

#) MPEG2 footage is editable, but you will experience massive image degradation, at an exponential rate, depending on how many times you re-encode the source footage. A very simple example of how you will get awful results is that of rendering a simple fade-to-black transition. With MPEG2 footage as the source, you will get severe pixellation in the final render/encode. M2-Edit Pro is the most popular MPEG2 editor, but this is only really useful for simple cuts etc, not for serious editing. Ulead Media Studio Pro can also edit MPEG, and so can the latest version of Adobe Premiere(6.5), but ALL of these suffer from severe image degradation, when editing MPEG.

#) As a #source# format (i.e. for editing), MPEG2 is not well established (except in the Broadcast arena, but you will not be using Pinnacle hardware costing thousands of pounds!), and this is because of the caveats mentioned above. To be honest, MPEG2 is excellent, but only for final output after the source material has been edited. This is why you'd get far better results by editing MiniDV footage, and then doing a final render and transcode to MPEG2 for authoring to DVDR.

#) MicroDV tapes are very expensive at the moment, owing to limited consumer take-up of the format.

#) DVDcam camcorders will have reduced shock resistance in comparison to Tape format camcorders.

That's by no means an exhaustive list, but you get the picture, I'm sure!

If you are looking to buy a MiniDV camcorder, I would personally suggest buying either a Sony, a Panasonic, or a Canon. JVC are ok, but not quite at the cutting edge with the others. Shop around and do your research, because there are definitely some bargains to be found, particularly with the independent retailers. Insurance is a good idea, and it's worth going to a shop that offers this, even if they charge slightly more for the camcorder, because digital camcorders can cost more to repair than they do to replace(!). Also, be sure to buy a model that allows you to export firewire footage back to the camcorder tape, because the new models have this disabled by HARDWARE, not software, so don't be fooled by a salesman telling you you can use a "DV-in widget/enabler". These only work on older models. If you need to check this with a particular model, ask the folks at SmartDV.co.uk for advice. They are the experts on DV-in enabling.

Specific camera recommendations are difficult until you tell me what your approximate price range is, and what you wish to use the camcorder for. Given that info, I'll be happy to oblige! :) (also, please tell me what country you will be buying the camera in, and what standard you require - i.e. PAL or NTSC)

Arky ;o)