Pros & Cons of editing from HDD Camcorder

simon27 wrote on 6/16/2009, 6:25 AM

Hi all,

My trusty MinDV Camcorder has finally given up the ghost and needs to be replaced.

I'm toying with replacing it with a HDD camera but am interested to know the pros and cons of doing this and the implications of editing in VMS (Version 9 Platinum Pro).

Up until now i've been capturing from the MiniDV via firewire and editing the raw .avi files before building and burning in DVDA. My understanding that this is the best way to work but the HDD cameras only seem to output in MPEG-2.

I'm not a serious film-maker - just family holidays, day to day stuff etc. but I do like a fairly good quality result.

So I guess i'm just after general advice. Is there any noticeable difference or loss in quality when editing MPEG-2? Is rendering time greatly affected? Should I buy another MiniDV machine? Any other advice?

Thanks for your time & help.
Simon

Comments

thereddragon wrote on 6/16/2009, 6:48 AM

I bought this Sony HD camcorder 3 days ago

http://www.hdrux10.com/Sony%20HDRUX10%20camcorder.jpg

They have been ranging online from the cheapest I found was around $550 - 800$ http://www.target.com/Sony-HD-DVD-Handycam...Ahdrux10&page=1

I was browsing Sears and ran across one on Clearance for $287 - It was the floor model but everything was there and it looks amazing on my PC.. im still really happy about it. I had been wanting a new recorder that I could easily upload to my computer and I think I found a steal on this one. Hard to find a good HD camara for under 500

This one is a Hybrid and so it can use a MiniDV or a memory stick - I enjoy editing so I purchased a 16GB Pro Duo card from Bestbuy - On sale for $79.00 and is more than enough room for me to record lots of HD footage..8GB would have been enough for me probably but I figured for just a little bit more id make sure.

Its easy to transfer over to the PC but Im still kinda new to this..I recorded in best quality and it makes the files M2TS - and MODD - also had a SKFO and a SKF1 file mixed in there..im not familiar with any of these and I dont know if I can make it label them for easier access so when i upload I know what is what -

But to answer your question Sony Vegas easily brought them over and I had no trouble editing them or rendering them to a WMV for upload to youtube.

The Hard Drive camcorders are more expensive and I felt for me personally buying a big memory stick was a better choice - and that way I never have to worry about the Hard Drive failing - Ive never had problems with Harddrives but I know a few people have.

Eugenia wrote on 6/16/2009, 10:18 AM

Get a flash camera, not a hard drive one. You can buy a good Canon AVCHD camera (that usually has more manual controls than the competition) for $600 these days.