Buying new camcorder want advice

Discuss about generic usage of MediaCoder.

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LadyRags
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Buying new camcorder want advice

Post by LadyRags » Thu Oct 23, 2008 9:12 am

I am planning to buy a new camcorder for myself and also for my daughter. ($300 to $500)

What are the best formats? systems to buy?

Files to DVD or mini-DVD
Files to your home computer then burn to disc
Files to a secondary WRITING system

Any I did not mention ???

What kind do you have? what do you like? what do you not like about your system?

Which ones are easy to make DVD and cD from?
Lady Rags

LadyRags
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Post by LadyRags » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:56 pm

Thanks Mixer for your response ... I put my topic into General cause it said that was where newbies post. I figure nobody could be newer to me. ( Is DV the same as DVD that plays on a TV / DVD set up?)

I have the older camcorder I loved but it died and I have not been able to get new batteries or have it fixed. I could go from tape to DVD using a DVD burner and my TV.


I know I want to be able to make simple raw DVDs that I can then upload back to my computer and edit the files.

I had purchased Sony Movie Studio and have been able to make simple edits ( Titles, date clip was shot, who is in the shots etc) ... when I could get the raw clips into the program. My problem always come from trying to get quick time . mov into format I can use. The purchase of a new camcorder should solve a lot of these problems. I also plan to by the ROXIE program as a friend of mine already uses it and promised to give me one on one lessons in exchange for making him a new quilt for his mother. Barter system is a live and well here in MI.... I think I am going to get the better end of this deal... Poor guy does not know what he is up for.

My Quick Time clips are being converted by a professional because I could not figure out the programing. (BTW I found out he downloaded Media Coder and loves it.)

I am going to keep working on the problem of getting the clips converted but I have a whole lot of learning to do before I get there.

Anna

I still need input on what type of camcorder to buy. I am trying to figure out what type of technological advances are coming so I can avoid having an unsupported technology... Whatever I pick has to be easy to use.

Goal is sharing DVDs with the entire extended family.


Thanks again for any input.
Lady Rags

JedOi
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Post by JedOi » Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:55 am

Hi LadyRags,

I have a Mini-DV camcorder (uses Mini-DV magnetic tapes) and a friend of mine has a DVD camcorder (writes straight to 8cm DVD-RW disks) and they both have drawbacks.

With Mini-DV, apart from the fact that tapes and recording/playback heads will eventually wear out, these camcorders usually connect to your PC via Firewire (IEEE 1394) leads which means you will almost certainly have to purchase a seperate firewire lead and, if your PC doesn't already have a firewire port, a seperate firewire card to install if you have a spare slot on the motherboard as well.

With DVD camcorders they can be quite tricky to work out how they function and my friend has found that pressing record then stop then record again quite often over-writes the footage he just shot. Also, if you want to transfer a little bit of footage to PC, you might (depending on the camcorder) have to "Finalize" the disk (can ONLY be done in the camcorder itself AND - the more free space on the disk, the longer it takes to finalize (about 19 minutes to finalize an 8cm DVD-RW on my friends camcorder)) before the disk can be recognized by the DVD drive in a computer.

The latest technology ... nearly all new camcorders now have Hard-Drives inside them (20GB, 40GB, 80GB much like i-Pods). These are much more convenient in that they just connect to a standard USB port for transferring files to a computer. I don't know how easy these cameras are to use or if they use special file formats requiring specific codecs to be installed or not (Mini-DV requires a DV codec to be installed).

Then of course, you have to consider whether you might want to future-proof by going for a High-Definition camcorder. This can be quite confusing because many camcorders will say HD but in many cases this simply means Hard-Drive ... they SHOULD really say HDD for Hard-Disk-Drive because strictly speaking HD typically means High-Definition ... so ... be aware to look out for these acronyms and check whether the descriptions/specifications are referring to Hard-Drive or High-Def.

For editing clips together on a computer prior to compiling & burning to DVD-R for distribution, I've tried a number of editors over the years and the best one I've found so far for intuitive and simple operation with more than enough professional features (if required) is -> CyberLink PowerDirector.

Hope this helps :)

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