Pros Cons Camcorders
which camcorder should i get? Mini DV or Flash?
I am looking just for making home videos and easy to edit and put on DVD’s. What are the pros and cons of each? I am leaning towards the tapes thinking it will be cheaper to make a bunch of tapes only to edit them down later to put on a DVD as a final product and with flash I will not have that option unless I fill up my PC after constantly transferring from the flash media. But are the Mini DV tapes going to be around for long or are the flash camcorders going to take over soon. Which one will be the easiest to burn to DVD and most cost effective
Use MiniDV – it’s a standard that’s lasted so long because it works!
MiniDV is lightly compressed – it takes a long time to capture the video (1 hr / hr i.e. realtime) and it uses a lot of disk space (13 Gbyte / hr). But then you don’t have to supervise the video capture and disk space is cheap. Having captured the video, MiniDV is much the best format for editing and converting to DVD-compliant MPEG-2.
Flash based camcorders record in either MPEG-2 or, more often, MPEG-4. They’re highly compressed so the capture is quick and they don’t use much disk space. But, the compression is achieved by throwing most of the video data away – this makes them poor formats for editing as the quality is degraded by the re-encoding.
It’s difficult to put numbers on the cost effectiveness – a lot depends on how much you plan to do. MiniDV camcorders are good value though – flash based camcorders are seen as new, better and sexy, so they command premium prices. Meanwhile the pros continue to use MiniDV!
Ask Us: What are the pros and cons of pocket camcorders?
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Contour Designs ShuttleXpress $43.90 The ShuttleXpress is a powerful productivity enhancement tool for everyone…great for laptop DV editing on the go! Modeled after Contour’s award-winning ShuttlePRO, the ShuttleXpress brings professional multimedia control to users at an even more attractive price. Can be used by itself, or to even further enhance your control, along with a ShuttlePRO for multiple device control. The ShuttleXpress… |
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StarTech.com 3 Port CardBus 1394a FireWire Adapter Card – Digital Video Editing Kit (CB1394) $25.00 This 3 Port PCMCIA IEEE 1394 FireWire 400 Laptop Adapter Card allows you to connect FireWire/i.LINK devices such as iPods or DV (digital video) camcorders to your laptop computer through a CardBus slot. Compatible with both PC and Mac laptop computers, the adapter card supports hot-swapping FireWire device connections, allowing you to unplug and swap peripherals with ease. The adapter card include… |
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Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Deluxe 9.0 [USB 2.0] [OLD VERSION] $249.99 Studio MovieBox Deluxe lets you create spectacular movies easily, using its library of powerful and creative features. Connect any Camcorder or VCR to your PC – any digital or analog source can be used. The Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port gives you a faster video transfer, while the advanced video editing and enhancement tools offer you the same tools used in major film studios. Features a full version of S… |
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