DVD cams

Steve Grisetti wrote on 9/29/2004, 7:08 AM

I'm surprised to see how many camcorders are hitting the market that record directly to DVDs.

I guess the main attraction is that it's a simple, cheap medium that you can play right from you DVD player.

But, from an editing point of view, is the medium just dead wrong? I mean, since you're recording as an MPEG rather than an AVI, doesn't it make editing virtually impossible?

Thanks for the expert advice.

Comments

IanG wrote on 9/29/2004, 7:51 AM

The editing is a problem because it's very *slow (recalculating all those P & B frames) and of poor quality, but it's worse when the audio's in AC-3 as nothing can handle it at a sensible price. To my mind they're a complete waste of money - even my mother isn't prepared to watch more than a few minutes of my raw footage!

* Maybe that's not quite true - there are editors which cut and splice. But then you don't get all the features we're used to in MS. And AC-3 is still a problem!

Ian G.

Steve Grisetti wrote on 9/29/2004, 9:25 AM

What if the DVD cam is attached to the computer (via, say, USB 2) and converted into an MJPEG/AVI, as if it were an analog video input?

(And, yes, Ian, I most definitely agree about how boring raw video is. I'm lucky if I get 15 minutes of memorable video out of a 60 minute tape!)

Chienworks wrote on 9/29/2004, 12:47 PM

Or, better yet, with a MiniDV cam you can connect the firewire cable to the computer and record a DV stream in AVI. You can do this either live or while playing back a previously recorded tape!

Oh, but then there wouldn't be any need for the DVD cam, now would there? ;)

Steve Grisetti wrote on 9/30/2004, 6:48 AM

Exactly, Chienworks!

And isn't it nice that DV cams only cost half as much?