Sony Camcorders Lowest Price
Need to make a choice – MiniDV or HDD?
I have an old, but decent camcorder (Sony TRV20) that’s miniDV. I was looking at a new camera and a trip to the store finds alamost all camcorders are now HDD! Hardly any tape machines left. I was offered a chance to buy a 5 year old Sony TRV950 for about $1000. The 950 has a good reputation, but I figure technology must have improved since then. Is there a newer camcorder that can compete in terms of image quality, low-light, etc. in the HDD cameras, but still has Firewire? (a must). If it was around that 1K price even better!
The only hard disc drive camcorders with firewire are either a few JVCs or miniDV tape based camcorders that use an external hard disc drive systems.
Consumer grade hard disc drive and flash memory camcorders save to the same highly compressed MPEG2 or AVCHD/MTSfile types. The suggested process flow is to copy the video files from the camcorder to the computer using USB, archive the files to whatever you plan on using to archive the files to, possibly then do a file conversion, then edit.
The data compression applied is a LOT more than that applied to DV/HDV in miniDV tape based camcorders which is why the camcorders you find in the prosumer and professional space continue to be miniDV tape (or generally, those that do use an external hard disc or flash memory continue to use DV/HDV). What you won’t find are prosumer or pro-grade camcorders that write DV/HDV to an internal hard disc drive (because of the problematic process flow).
Along with the video file format and process flow issues, hard disc drives suffer from not being able to write video data under high prolonged vibration environments and high altitude.
Only recently has the low-light behavior been improved in consumer camcorders by enlarging the lenses (from around 37mm diameter to up to 58mm diameter) and slightly enlarging the imaging chips.
AVCHD/MTS high definition video from hard disc drive and flash memory camcorders requires a LOT of computer processing. The highly compressed MPEG2 hard disc drive and flash memory camcorders typically needs some sort of conversion before your video editor can deal with the video.
To stay in your budget range, I would suggest you look into the Canon HV30, HV40 (miniDV tape), or HF series and HF S series (flash memory) and just skip hard disc drive camcorders.
I agree that Sony seems to have all but abandoned miniDV tape based camcorders in the consumer space – though it is fascinating that the prosumer (HDR-FX1000, HDR-FX7) and entire HVR professional line continue to use miniDV tape (or write to DV/HDV fomrat video in the case of the HVR-Z7U). As well, the entire Canon professional line (XL, XH, XLH series camcorders).
The changes in technology have brought new storage methods (hard disc drive, DVD and flash memory camcorders) and the ability to capture high definition video. The problem is not with that hardware, necessarily, but the files types used to store that video on the selected media and the lack of a good process flow. DV and HDV video formats continue to provide superior video quality.
TOP 10 MiniDV Camcorder – Best Price up to 79%
|
|
Roxio Creator Pro 2012 $49.99 Roxio Creator Pro 2012 includes just about everything you need to easily enhance, preserve and share your digital media. This new version of the best-selling suite includes more of everything you love about Creator. More tools. More options. More fun! Over $400 in additional software and tools. Edit video and create DVDs. Fix and enhance photos; create photo slideshows, cards and panoramas…. |
|
|
Sony 4 GB Memory Stick ProDuo MSMT4G/TQ1 (Black) $6.49 Memory Stick offers fast read and write speeds up to 80Mbps. Features increased durability with temperature ranging in operation from 13 degrees Fahrenheit to 185 degrees Fahrenheit. Memory Stick includes MSAC-M2 Memory Stick Duo media adapter for compatibility in standard Memory Stick media slot. Use Memory stick with compatible digital cameras, digital voice recorders and video cameras…. |
|
|
SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB, SDHC, UHS-1 Flash Memory Card SDSDXPA-032G-X46,Black $37.63 UHS-I… |
|
|
Sony 25DPW47RS2 DVD+RW Re-Recordable DVD (25-Pack Spindle) $11.06 SONY DISKDVD+RW4.7G4X25/PKSPINDLEDISKDVD+RW4.7G4X25/PKSPINDLE Manufacturer : SONY UPC : 027242653801… |