OT: High Def camcorder

Kennymusicman wrote on 12/7/2007, 1:18 PM
Been looking at the forums and posts...

What do people rate as the best choice between Sony HD handycam stuff such as
HDRSR5E 1080i HD 40GB HDD Camcorder
4.0 Megapixel still image recording and 2.3 Megapixel Dual Rec while recording movies 20x optical zoom 80x digital zoom 2.7" clear photo LCD 1 years warranty. @£570 new

(not the older, lower res model)


or another brand?


I could get HDRHC5E - HDV Camcorder for a bit cheaper, but will I regret saving a little money over lacked features?

Mostly day-time shooting, some inside "gigs" (as in bands). Would like to get some evening coastal footage too.

I'm more used to Canon Xl2, and more budget 3CCD cameras. Would love to hear people opinions and advice between the types of camera.

Thanks guys

Ken

Comments

4eyes wrote on 12/7/2007, 8:50 PM
Just my opinion, but I would never buy a cam that records in AVCHD with plans on editing the footage. Especially music videos. Even music videos you should work with raw audio (uncompressed pcm).
Then that would have to sync with the re-encoded video track.
I only edit music videos using frame accurate codec's. So that would be using the cineform codec for the video and uncompressed pcm (wav) for the audio.

My choice would be the Sony HC5. They are well built, record in Mpeg2 which will make syncing much easier than avchd video. Even mpeg2 you may have to convert it to cineform for frame accurate cuts & exact audio sync.
Galeng wrote on 12/8/2007, 12:35 AM
I recently bought the HC7 and am very happy with it.

Most all my shooting is day time, outdoors though. Have not used for indoor or evening/night shooting yet. It only has 10x optical and 20x digital zoom. But has jacks for external mic and lanc. Also, working with the touch screen menu system isn't too bad. I do wish it had more buttons on the body.

Have been capturing and editing in V8 without any problems at all--no black frames, out of sync, etc. Working directly with the m2t files.

Down converted SD looks very good and HD looks GREAT!

Galen
blink3times wrote on 12/8/2007, 5:23 AM
I would stay away from the AVCHD for the moment anyway. I think someday it may end up being the preferred replacement for mpeg2, but it's not QUITE there yet. It's still a pain to edit/render and still not quite the match to mpeg in some respects.

I have the Canon HV20 and the Sony HC3. Canon has really nailed it in the PQ department.... there isn't too much that is better,even beats the HC7. But the cam is a bit lacking in every other respect. It even feels and looks like a pretty cheap cam.

This is not to say that the HC3 does not have good quality because it does. In fact this cam gives me a better all round feeling of satisfaction. The PQ is just a tad better with the Canon but the Sony has a much better quality feel, more options, better still cam...etc, so I am left feeling more satisfied with the Sony.

In retrospect, I'm a little sorry I got the HV20.... and if I had to do it again.... it would be the HC7
Laurence wrote on 12/8/2007, 6:20 AM
I'll be the dissenting voice here. If you use Gearshift to generate proxies, AVCHD editing is pretty easy. Without Gearshift, I get about 4fps preview, but the rendering looks fine. With Gearshift I get smooth previews along with the excellent final renders.

The renders do take a while, especially in contrast to the lighning fast mpeg2 HDV smart-renders, but the quality is just fine in the end.
4eyes wrote on 12/8/2007, 7:07 AM
I've been curious how the HV20 output video survives multiple re-encodes (no smart-render).
I've read where many complain about this, yet I don't really experience this from my Sony HC3 unit(s).
I also experienced this loss using SD Canon Cams, a re-encode would lose quality where my sony cams did not appear to lose that much quality on re-encodes (no smart-rendering).

Using the spot-focus on the HC3 for me makes a difference for general shooting when your moving around. By default my HC3 picks a point in the view and maintains focus on that one point. This gives the video nice depth, but if your focus point is on the farthest object then the closer objects aren't as sharp so I use a few of the manual modes/settings for the overall landscape recordings. This way everything in the video is pretty sharp quality. You can also kick up the sharpness setting in the HC3 a notch or 2.

The one thing I'll say for Canon with their consumer cams I really like their manual focus method, simply grab the lens and turn it. The Sony HC3 you have to turn a thumbwheel that's very small.

You can use a proxy file for avchd editing in general, but for me editing a drum solo which must have absolute perfect video/audio sync, add fades, transitions effects, overlays, the only reliable method is frame accurate editing, this produces the smoothest high quality and pleasant video after all the conversions back to blu-ray or hd-dvd.

Edited avchd is not as smooth. Maybe soon they will come out with some hardware related encoder/decoders to assist the software for avchd editing.
Kennymusicman wrote on 12/8/2007, 4:07 PM
Cheers for the input thus far - REALLY appreciated.

What would be the recommended minimum pixel count for a HD camera these days. The one I'm looking at has 4m(stills) & 2.3m(video).

Is less ok - or is more better (ie, by a long shot). ?

Also, I would be looking for this camcorder to be a keeper, and last a fairly long time. Additional thoughts?

Cheers once again

Ken
Laurence wrote on 12/8/2007, 8:24 PM
I can edit on any frame with AVCHD. Can't other people?
Spot|DSE wrote on 12/8/2007, 9:04 PM
If they can't, then there is a problem with their app, or they've bought into FUD.
AVCHD isn't HDV, but it's pretty darn good with both the Sony and Canon camcorders.
Even two years ago, we were saying that AVCHD, even with its warts, is the new DV. And everything points to that even still.
HDV very much has its place, and IMO, the current choices of cams make it the most viable purchase for a working video purpose.
AVCHD is going to become easier to edit, but for the time being, I'm getting 5-7 fps on my single core VAIO laptop and external firewire drive. My quad core desktop can give me 25-30 fps pretty consistently.
riredale wrote on 12/8/2007, 9:20 PM
What I don't understand about AVCHD is that it is supposedly a much more sophisticated codec for video than creaky old MPEG2. Okay, so the HDV format runs about 25Mb/sec (including audio) and the best flavor of AVCHD I gather runs at 15Mb/sec, about a 40% reduction in bitrate. And I hear that even then it doesn't match the quality of HDV.

So what is missing here? I guess I would have assumed that a state-of-the-art codec would be maybe 3 or 4 times the compression of plain old MPEG2.


EDIT:

Kenny, I wouldn't get my shorts in a knot over still-camera performance with your camcorder. I think video and still formats are different enough animals that you will still want to have a digital still camera lying around the house.

That said, my little HC-3 can do 4MB stills, and they compare very nicely to a generic digital still camera with roughly the same number of pixels. I wouldn't want to do "professional quality" captures with it, but for snapshots it's just fine.

Camcorderinfo says the higher-pixel camcorders usually suffer from noisy low-light video capture. My little HC-3 was only sold for 1 year and is nearly identical to the HC-5. As a counterpoint to my much-larger FX1, I'm happy with it and plan to keep it for a while.