I've used DV tapes, SD Memory Card with Xacti and have a JVC HD Camcorder. Tape Advantages:
In terms of quality the DV tapes have HD footage beat in terms of quality and a wee bit more flexibility with low light levels. Tape Disadvantage: The time it takes to convert it to digital and then you can start working with the footage. Also the amount of tapes and the available hard drive space is going to mount up. You could save the raw footage to DVD. HD Camcorder Advantages I'm using a basic level JVC HD Camcorder so the newer models might be different. Cost savings on tape purchase is a big one. I can record 7 hours on a 30GB hard drive at high quality. In decent light the video quality is just slightly below DV tape. Fairly easy to transfer to computer for editing - with a huge exception. HD Disadvantage: In low light it sucks. Also it is a pain to figure out ways to convert (in JVC) case. For the model I have I either have to rename the file extension "MOD to MPG" then use MPEG Streamclip to de-interlace the video. Or I save it as a DVD and de-interlace and copy to the file format I need. Depending of the skill level of the users it can get complicated. You will use a lot of storage space or you have the option of saving on DVD or your computer. I really want a good hard drive camcorder with is flexible with light quality. I'm not sure that I've seen that happen yet. I'm not going back to tape but I might have to wait until the technology catches up to my needs. My two cents, Gena http://outonthestoop.blogpsot.com --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, "Deirdre Straughan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Here's the sitch: > > I am trying to get every office I deal with at Sun (6 - 10 sites worldwide) > to have a videocamera they can use to capture presentations etc. which can > then be edited and re-used for sharing knowledge, training, etc. Usually the > raw footage will be sent to me for editing, posting, and making into DVDs. > That last point is important: I need good enough quality somewhere that a > DVD is going to look reasonable (especially considering that filming will > usually take place in less than optimum conditions); highly compressed MPG > may not be good enough. > > One problem we've already run into is how to ship around large amounts of > raw footage: these talks run 45 minutes up to 3 hours, and an hour of raw DV > AVI = about 12 GB. Even Sun doesn't have the bandwidth for that to be a fast > transfer, and I certainly don't have it at home. > > My gut feeling is that the best solution is MiniDV - tapes are easier to > mail around than hard disks. But I'm willing to be told otherwise. I don't > know the state of the art in HD-based camcorders these days - what do they > compress into? How big are the resulting files (per minute)? > > Any thoughts/advice/pointers will be welcome! > > > -- > best regards, > Deirdré Straughan > > living & travelling in Italy > (and other Countries Beginning with I) > www.beginningwithi.com > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
