Since I have been in the market for a high definition camcorder, I
have done some research comparing the two formats. I have read many
threads on various newsgroups and forums and consolidated my findings.
I have posted these findings at http://skarkada.googlepages.com/minidvvsharddisc%3Aprosandcons

My intention is to help other people save some time in their research.
Please take a few minutes to review the document and post any
recommendations here. I will try to update the Web page with the
suggestions.

Thanks for your time.

(In case you are wondering, I haven't decided on a high-def camcorder
yet. It has to be either HV20 or SR1.)

I am in the excat same situation as you and are trying to decide which
storage formate i am gonna invest in, the only difference bieng that i
probably know much less about it than you, since ive only spend a few hours
researching so far and havent ever owned a videocamera.

Anyways i have a question for your comparesion (which i thought was very
informative):

In the future and sharing section you say that you would need to keep the
tapes as backup and that sharing is hard (due to it bieng on tape i asume).
My idear if i bought a miniDV camera was to transfer all the data onto my
computer and edit it from the harddisk, and try to save the movies as files
on the harddisk and not on a tape. Am i completly missing a point here and
is that not possible ? (if it is i would say that sharing would be easier
and backing up data could be done on more futurefriendly medias)

<skark***@gmail.com> wrote in message

Show quote

Hide quote

That is what I used to think about tapes. Transfer the tape content to
hard disk and then reuse the tape. After reading many discussions, I
have learnt that one is supposed to keep the tape as backup.

Relatively speaking, sharing the footage from a hard drive based
camcorder is much faster and easier. From what I have read, with Sony
SR1, these are the steps:
1. Transfer the clip to your computer's hard disk
2. Open Sony's application
3. Right mouse click on the file and burn either a regular DVD or a HD
DVD
(It may not be that simple, though.)

With MiniDV, you have to capture the clip first. Getting to that clip
on the tape could become tedius with all the rewinding and fast
forwarding. Then, you should know when exactly to stop. Then, you have
to remember to fast forward to blank spot for future recording;
otherwise you will overwrite existing footage. All these comments are
based on my old VHS-C camcorder that I have stopped using 3 years ago.
Probably latest tape camcorders are intelligent.

My current camcorder uses DVD media. I don't like the picture quality
at all. I recently read a few articles that said DVD lifetime is
anywhere between 2 years and 10 years.

<skark***@gmail.com> wrote in message

Show quote

Hide quote

Copying a mini dv to disc is no more difficult then copying from a hdd
camera.
DV is higher quality then what will be on disc as that has to be compressed.
Editing is better from DV for that reason Then rendered to DVD. The tapes
are relatively cheap so keeping the original so that you could edit it
differently at some latter day can be worth while Depending on abilities.
and must editing software can control the camera via the firewire.
I think in the case of Adobe premier it only downloads a draft quality until
you have done all you cuts and edits then controls the camera to get the
bits you wanted at best quality and does the render.

I'm also studying different types of camcorders for a purchase and have
never owned one.

So, the question arises- why can't that make a hard drive camcorder which
does not have any more compression than the DV tape camcorders? I suppose
the answer is that doing so would eat up too much of the hard drive too
quickly? But hard drives are getting bigger and cheaper- so I should think,
given the advantages of using a hard drive, that it won't be long before
they'll make hard drive camcorders without the heavy compression?

Tape of any sort seems like obsolete technology.

I understand the difference in compression between digital still imagery but
not video imagery. Tape has no compression at all? And, just how much
compression do the hard drives use?

Somewhere online I read a review of new systems and the reviewer said he saw
little difference between the quality of high end tape and hard drive
camcorders so maybe the issue is moot or soon will be.

Joe

Show quote

Hide quote

"Joe" wrote ...
I would be very surprised if it ever happens. Concurrently with
the cost-effectiveness (size/weight/capacity/cost) of small hard
drives, we appear to have ever more compressed storage
methods foisted upon the consumer.  In the same manner
that MP3 seems to be the audio "quality standard" of the latest
generation of high-tech consumers.

It still can't be beat for capacity, convienence, and proven
reliability.  It is still far and away the media of choice for most
of our planet's data.

Tape has whatever compression was written to it. If you are
talking about DV video specifically, it is spatially compressed
about 5:1, and has no temporal compression.

Roughly the same compression as DVD video.  Several x
more compression (both spatial and temporal) than DV,
for example.

I could believe that under ideal conditions. In the real world,
however, it is baloney.

It depends on the quality of the device.
There have been broadcast quality hard drive recorders
around for quite some time. The drives are removable
so you use them as temporary storage as in news gathering.
It would probably take a pretty good eye to see the difference
between it and Betacam SP. But, it's not inexpensive.
http://www.avid.com/resources/articles/bc_ikegami_avid.pdf

I don't think that is what we are talking about here.
This is probably about those sub $1000 consumer cameras.
If compared to DV, DV would win.

It's all relative

David

Well, as much as I like convenience, I also like quality.

About a decade ago when digital cameras were catching on with consumers- I
had a tough decision- to buy a top of the line 35 mm or a consumer digital.
At that time consumer digital cameras were not cheap and not very good- I
ended up with a Nikon F100, a premium 35 mm and also got extra lenses, fancy
tripod, fancy camera case, etc. For the same amount of money I could have
gotten a digital camera that by today's standards would be a toy.

But, I'm very impressed with the quality I see from friends using fairly
inexpensive digital cameras. With my 35 mm, to use the pictures on the net-
I had to scan them which lost quality and which resulted in pictures
inferior to what you can get from modern $300 digital cameras. I just some
pictures of my house which is for sale with a digital and they're much
better than those I took with my Nikon F100- seeing those fine pictures
really makes me realize that I want quality imagery and will sacrifice the
convenience- so maybe I'll go with tape after all- from what I've read in
this newsgroup, that seems to be the consensus if quality is more important
than convenience.

Joe


news:87Bgi.2236$t95.515@trndny01...

Show quote

Hide quote

Show quote

Hide quote

True but remember when edited and saved on a DVD for viewing on the telly
it has lost some detail as its now compressed to what the mini DVD or HDD
would have been. But if you had edited and saved the later two forms again
to DVD you would Lose some even detail.

Nonsense! If you would have bought a decent scanner, the quality of the
scanned pictures off a negative, is a million times better than that of a
$300 digital camera. Even the best digital camera's are still behind good
old fashioned negative.

cheers

-martin-

Show quote

Hide quote

MiniDV uses the DV-25 standard, which requires approximately 13.7 gigabytes
for an hour of video.  They could make a hard drive camcorder that uses this
standard, but a machine with a reasonable amount of storage would require a
relatively large and more expensive hard drive.

Camcorder manufacturers have made a deliberate decision to limit video
quality in consumer machines, particularly at the low end.  They did this
for two reasons.  First, they think that most consumers don't care -- all
they're doing is the occasional kid's birthday party or vacation video and,
for that, quality isn't sought or required.  I think they're wrong, but I
have to buy prosumer gear to get the quality that I require.  Second, such
manufacturers as Sony, Canon and Panasonic deliberately limit video quality
of their consumer lines because, for digital machines, they could easily
produce consumer camcorders that would match the quality of their prosumer
and professional offerings.  They don't want to compete with themselves for
their higher-priced lines so they intentionally produce low-quality
machines.


That's only part of the reason.  A 120 gigabyte hard drive would work just
fine.  However, the mini-form factor that camcorder manufacturers think
consumers want requires very small hard drives, and few are available beyond
30 gigabytes.  That would give only slightly over two hours at DV-25 data
rates.


Unlikely.

Not really, particularly if you're concerned with archival quality.  Tape is
robust -- it's not susceptible to impact damage or heat the way hard drives
are.  Damage to tape is recoverable.  Damaged hard drives can only be
recovered by experts with clean rooms, if at all.

MiniDV uses DV-25, which is a non-temporal (see below) lossy compression
that yields about 5 to 1 compression rates.  The data rate is 25 mbits per
second.

Standard defintion hard drive camcorders use either mpeg2 or mpeg4, both of
which are lossy, temporal compression formats.  "Temporal compression" means
that reference frames are used to calculate the change in image over time,
with only changed data stored.  This allows much greater compression, but
also makes it much more difficult to edit.  Compression rates are variable,
but the highest quality compression will yield at least 10 to 1.  Most
consumer hard drive camcorders limit data rates to those of DVD, i.e. no
more than 10 mbps.

The reviewer is an idiot.  The difference between standard definition miniDV
and standard defintion consumer mpeg2/4 machines is obvious and dramatic.
Note, however, that camcorder manufacturers can, and do, build lousy miniDV
machines that can produce horrendously poor video.  Video quality is a
combination of compression technology, lens quality, sensor size and density
and overall electronics quality.  Junk is junk, regardless of storage
medium.

Show quote

Hide quote

Well, I'm sure learning a lot from you folks!

So, let's say I'm willing to spend up to $1,500- I want high quality video
and the ability to edit it on my new high end computer- in particular I want
to video out door stuff, especially forests in New England. (I'm a forester
and want to film forestry activities). I want a camera that is fairly
rugged.

Any suggestions? Should I just not think about hi-def? Or should I go for
that too, for the future? I'm not likely to be able to afford to upgrade
frequently.

I know that getting good exposure settings in forests with my Nikon F100 35
mm was difficult- so a video camera that can give me good exposures is a big
plus.

Joe

Have a look at the SD memory card high definition AVCHD camcorder from
Panasonic.. the HDC-SD1:

http://tinyurl.com/2d8cwy

It should be fairly rugged because there are no moving parts.

Nice image quality, too.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Show quote

Hide quote

The long answer is: camera-manufacturers don't want to cut into the sales
of their professional products!
(which is the only right answer, by the way ;-) ).

cheers

-martin-

Show quote

Hide quote

On 2007-06-27, Joe <a**@xyz.com> wrote:
Tell that to they guys in the server room. They use DLT tapes for backing
up data. tapes is still state of the art for storage.

<skark***@gmail.com> wrote in message

Show quote

Hide quote

Oh, for crying out loud, this is really the blind leading the blind.

1.  Yes, capture of miniDV is real time and a hard disk transfer is,
potentially, faster.

2.  You don't capture "clips" from a miniDV tape by finding what you want in
the camera and then trying to capture it.  You either (a) do an initial log
_on_the_computer_ and then capture only the clips you want (and there is
software that can do this at relatively high speeds) or, (b) capture the
whole tape and let your capture software automatically split scenes based on
time code or optical scene change detection.  Then you can do what you want
with the clips.

3.  You do not EVER delete a clip from the middle of a miniDV tape and then
try to re-use it.  You shouldn't reuse tapes, period.  There's absolutely no
reason to do so.  Tapes are cheap -- they're consumables -- and your video
is irreplaceable as you can never go back in time.

Your experience with your VHS-C camcorder has absolutely no relevance to
this process.


I havd DVD-Rs that went bad after 6-months.  I have 12-year old miniDV tapes
that are in perfect condition.  I have 30 year old analog tapes that look as
good as the day they were recorded.  Tape is robust and the best medium for
archiving.

Show quote

Hide quote

Firstly, thank you all for your inputs. Some of you seem to be
assuming that I have already taken a decision agains MiniDV. That is
not true.

I have read in many forums and discussions that the life of MiniDV is
up to 40 years. Say, my camcorder dies in 2037. What is the guarantee
that there will still be some camcorder in the market that can read
miniDV?

Please note that that response was related to sharing ability. Feature
described in (a) is attractive. I didn't know such a feature exists.
(b) won't work for sharing. Consider this scenario: A family visits
you and your children and visiting children are playing well. You take
some photos and some videos. You quickly want to copy the pictures and
video clips to a CD or DVD and give it to them before they leave.
There is still some blank tape left and the tape also contains footage
of events that the visitors are not interested in. In this situation,
I can burn them a CD with JPEG and MPEG files in under 20 minutes
using my existing miniDVD camcorder. Capturing the whole tape is not
going to work.

Well, having the ability to delete unwanted footage is a good thing.
Yes, you can't do it easily with a tape. That is a negative in tape
and positive on hard drive.

OK.

I agree that tape is a good archive and that is one of the positives
in my pros and cons table.

<skark***@gmail.com> wrote in message

Show quote

Hide quote

First, as I've noted, I have analog video tape that is 30+ years old and
pristine.  I'd be surprised if miniDV didn't exceed that rather
dramatically.

As for whether miniDV camcorders (or camcorders using miniDV format tapes)
will be around in 2037, I cannot say.  However, long before that, you will
have moved your video data to a different archival format.  Any format that
results in image degradation could hardly be considered archival.  For this
reason alone, DVDs are not a suitable format for storing miniDV video -- 
either you'd have to use a lot of DVDs (which could hold only 22 minutes or
so of DV-25 video), or you'd have to compress to mpeg which will degarde the
video quality.

What many pros are doing now is archiving DV-25 on hard drives.  Hard drives
are relatively cheap and can be easily dropped into an external case.  They
do require monitoring, however, because a failure of the drive would
compromise, completely, the video stored on it.

None of this has anything to do with the point that I raised, i.e. any
miniDV camcorder can "read" tapes recorded on any other miniDV camcorder at
SP speeds.

Show quote

Hide quote

I assume that by "sharing" you mean giving video to others to view.  If you
are selecting clips, you are already engaging in editing, albeit in a rather
crude fashion.  Once the video is on a computer, it is such a simple matter
to pull the clips into an editing package and select and trim what you want
to share and the burn to DVD that it makes absolutely no sense to try and
pull of selected clips from the camcorder.


Take a look at Scenealyzer Live which is an extremely powerful but
inexpensive capture program.  As I recall, the Studio editing packages can
do a high-speed log and, I suspect, many other consumer editing programs can
as well.

As an example of a suggested work-flow, when I travel I shoot roughly
one-hour of video every two days (though frequently more).  I'll return from
a typical trip with 12 to 14 hours of tape.  Once home, I'll pick a Saturday
or Sunday when I'm going to be around the house and start the capture to my
computer (I keep a cheap miniDV camcorder for this purpose, so as to avoid
wear-and-tear on my prosumer machine).  I'll start the transfer going and
then go away for an hour or so -- eat breakfast, watch TV, go for a walk,
whatever.  Then I'll return and start the next one.  Capture is completely
automated and unattended.  By the end of the day, I've got all 14 hours in
the computer.  I can do a quick review of the Scenealyzer captures if I want
and delete unwanted clips right from within the program.  However, usually
I'll just pull everything into my editor (I use Adobe Premiere Pro) and then
start the edit process.  Now, I do a lot heavier editing than what you've
described -- I want to create a souvenir/memory of our trip that will be
something I want to keep for a lifetime, so I put a lot of attention into
story, correcting the video, transitions, titles, compositing, etc.  You may
not want to do that.  However, I also create short sequences that I share
with friends, upload to Youtube, etc.  It's very easy to make my selection
from the captured clips within the editor, drop them on the timeline, throw
in transitions as necessary and then export (I don't burn directly to DVD
from the editor because I want the highest quality so I transcode using a
standalone program and then an authoring program -- you don't have to do
that, however as virtually all editors will let you burn a DVD directly from
the timeline).


How much video have you shot?  If it's just a few minutes, it will take only
a few minutes to capture.

IMHO, that's bad practice -- I don't mix subjects on tape.  As I said, tape
is cheap.  Think of it as a notepad -- there's no reason not to use a blank
sheet of paper to record a new thought, rather than economizing by trying to
write very small and put all sorts of unrelated topics on one page.

Not if you insist on filling up a tape.  Why would you do that?

Why?  Why not just throw in a new tape?

I can't think of any reason why you'd want to do that.  On a hard drive
machine, your storage is limited to the capacity of the hard drive, until
you dump your video into a computer.  On a tape machine, your storage is
unlimited.  Fill up one tape?  Just throw in another -- they're cheap.

Show quote

Hide quote

I think I am beginning to see your point of view now.

Not only cheap, but require ZERO downloading time to get the
camcorder ready for another hour (or whatever) of shooting
(unlike any hard-drive based device).  Same issue with flash-
memory based cameras, audio recorders, etc. The media are
expensive and require either field-downloading or a huge budget
for "media".

<skark***@gmail.com> wrote ...
1) HISTORY
There are no known video tape formats ever made/used
that are orphaned yet. There are always people out there
with "antique" equipment who can copy an obsolete format
onto whatever you wish.

2) BACKUPS
There is nothing to prevent you from taking your mini-DV tape
archives (or whatever) and copying them to whatever new
format is popular when DV is finished. Although I anticipate
the DV will have a long run. At least as long as VHS has had.

If instant consumer-viewing is a primary requirement, then
get a mini-DVD based camcorder. It will have the same
reduced quality as the hard-drive camcorders suffer from,
but you have made an informed tradeoff decision.

I've heard that 2" helical scan reel-to-reel machines are in short supply.
;)

I actually keep around an old Beta unit, as well as a 3/4" Umatic -- you
never know.

"PTravel" wrote ...

Show quote

Hide quote

I guess it depends on how you define: "short supply".
There are enough of them so that you have a choice
of which vendor to send your tape to for dubbing to
the new format of your choice.

There you go...

Show quote

Hide quote

In looking over your web page, I noticed a couple of things that
may not be correct. Under "Quality", the Mini-DV compression
rate is 5:1 (not none), but it is frame-by-frame, with a clever error
correction system in place that covers well most small drop-outs.
Under "Convenience 1", you are not limited to 1 hour of
recording time with tape - 90-minute tapes are available (these
have equal image and sound quality, but may risk a slightly higher
drop-out rate, which is rarely a problem with well maintained
gear), and the shooting camera can be FireWire connected to
a cheap second Mini-DV camcorder in VCR mode ready to
record a second 1.5 hours of continuous recording on tape (3
hours total!). Having a cheap second camera also likely solves
the "Future" problem...

I have updated the Web page with the proints you brought up.

Interesting concept. Can the second "cheap" camcorder do its work even
if the main camcorder is high definition?

Thanks for taking the time to feedback.

It's an interesting theory that Sony, Canon and Panasonic deliberately
limit the quality of their video recorders but is there any hard
evidence for this?  If one of them did this unilaterally, the other
two would out-compete them and they would lose sales.  If they all
covertly agreed to do it together, this would be a very anti-
competitive practice and almost certainly illegal.

But with a modern world economy, it seems rather easy to avoid anti
competitive actions by governments. Just consider the oil industry.




<petg***@hotmail.com> wrote in message

Show quote

Hide quote

<petg***@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Yes, though it's circumstantial.  Sony's new ACVHD high-def machines use a
codec that is specced to a bandwidth of 25 mbps.  However, Sony's consumer
implementations of ACVHD arbitrarily limit that bandwidth to between 12 and
17 mbps, depending on the model.  There is no reason for this arbitrary
limit and it results in signficant motion artifacts and other undesireable
concommitants of over-compression.  With respect to the Sony line, the
change in philosphy occured after Sony retired the TRV900.  This was an
excellent 3ccd camcorder, with good low-light sensitivity and a nice,
noise-free, saturated image.  In fact, the camcorder was so good that many
small event videographers were buying it, rather than the prosumer VX1000
which cost roughly 50% more.  Sony's next iteration of camcorders consisted
of the VX2000 (which I have) and the TRV950.  The VX2000 was significant
improvement over the VX1000 -- it has outstanding low-light characteristics,
and a rich, noise-free, very saturated and beautiful video image.  The
TRV950, however, added all sorts of silly gimmicks, e.g. Bluetooth, but had
dramatically reduced low-light capability, a relatively noisey and poorly
saturated image (the result of using smaller, higher density sensors) and
was unsuitable for prosumer applications like weddings and small event
videography.  Sony has maintained this clear demarcation in quality
throughout its subsequent introductions, e.g. the prosumer HDV machines
offer dramatically better high-def video than its consumer ACVHD machines
which, as I noted above, have arbitrarily-limited data bandwidth.

Canon and Panasonic have done, essentially, the same thing.

They haven't conspired to do this.  Canon's prosumer offerings were never
threatened by Canon's consumer machines -- Canon did not (and, for all I
know, still does not) offer a 3ccd consumer camcorder.  There was also a
greater spread in price point for Canon.  Its XL1 and XL2 were (and are)
more expensive than Sony's VX2000 and VX2100.  Canon's GL2 was competitive
with the VX2000 in price, though not offering as good an image.

Sony "paved the way" for lowered consumer expectations with respect to video
quality.  The other manufacturers simply followed suit.

Show quote

Hide quote

Of course there is a reason, and that is to keep the resulting quality
similar to HDV. Or else all producers would rush out to buy one of these
camera's, instead of IMX50 or something like that. Market protection (like
you said in an earlier post).

-m-

Show quote

Hide quote

Show quote

Hide quote

Except that the quality of the ACVHD machines isn't comparable to HDV, at
least not based on what I've read.  The ACVHD machines are reported to
exhibit rather profound motion artifacts when panning or shooting complex
fast moving subjects.  Everything I've read (and the sample footage I've
seen) suggests that, while HDV has enough motion artifact issues to preclude
commercial studio work, they're far better than the ACVHD machines.

I think ACVHD is limited to establish a "consumer" benchmark for HD, with
HDV defining the "prosumer" limit.

Show quote

Hide quote

As a video newbie, I'm interested in knowing the meaning of ACVHD and HDV.

Thanks,
Joe

Show quote

Hide quote

AVCHD (I repeatedly made typos in my prior posts) and HDV are lossy temporal
compression codecs that implement high-definition video.  "Compression"
means that less data than is actually produced by the video source is used
to store the video.  "Lossy" means data is lost in the compression process,
i.e. the displayed compressed image will have less detail than the original
source.  "Temporal" means that, in addition to compressing frame-by-frame,
subsequent (and sometimes prior) frames are compressed by calculating how
they differ from a reference frame and only the differences are stored.

HDV uses mpeg2, the same codec as is used for DVDs.  AVCHD uses mpeg4, which
is newer and, supposedly, more efficient (I haven't seen comparisons between
the two codecs).  Sony and Panasonic are two manufacturers who have
introduced high-def camcorders that use AVCHD.  Their AVCHD machines are
restricted to their consumer line and have artificially-limited bandwidth
that results in pronounced motion artifacts and other image degradation.  A
number of manufacturers, including Sony, make HDV machines, but these are
available only in their prosumer lines.  These machines have no arbitrary
bandwidth limitation and, generally, produce video that is far superior to
the consumer AVCHD machines.  This is not the result of any particular
problem with AVCHD, but with the way that it has been implemented, i.e. at
limited, low bandwidth, and with the camera's sensors and lenses.

Show quote

Hide quote

Thanks for that explanation.

I'm not surprised that some manufactures would artificially lower the
quality of their product to avoid competing with their high end products.
However, just for the sake of argument- if one didn't do this- and word got
out that Company X was producing a far superior consumer camcorder- they'd
win the competition. As far as reducing the competition with their own high
end products- I should think that many other factors make their high product
a high end product- such as better lenses, larger higher quality CCD, more
solidly built camera,  more and better features of all kinds. If what you
say is true- it would be interesting to see this argument supported by, for
example, Videomaker magazine or some other industry wide group.

Not that I have much doubt of what you say- or that I am a strong supporter
of industry- but it's a serious accusation and I'd like to see who else
agrees. And, if I owned a camcorder company, I'd think I'd prefer to buck
the trend and produce a superior product and make more money doing it.

Joe

Show quote

Hide quote

Trouble is, the punters don't want a better camcorder.  They want
features.

"Laurence Payne" wrote ...
Indeed. And furthermore, have you been following the discussion
of the Sony HVR-V1U sound problem that Mark Weiss is reporting
over on rec.video.desktop and rec.arts.movies.production.sound?
It looks like Sony are artifically "dumbing down" the audio section
to match the video.  There is no other sensible explanation for
the remarkably poor performance and then Sony's defense of it.

Show quote

Hide quote

I've been reading the cross-posts here and find it very disturbing.  I'm
still not convinced that he didn't just receive a couple of bad cameras.  If
you recall, Sony denied for a long time that there was a hiss problem with
the PD150/170.  It took the BBC documenting a hardware mod to bypass the AGC
before Sony fixed the problem, and still wouldn't repair older models.

Show quote

Hide quote

That should be "features" in quotes because a lot of what is marketed as a
feature really isn't.  For example, "digital zoom" is pure fraud as it
results in severe image degradation and pixelation.  High optical zoom is
also pointless, as no one can handhold above 10x or 12x and get a usable
video (I try to use a tripod for everything, even at wide angle).

On Mon, 2 Jul 2007 14:43:20 -0700, "PTravel"
<ptra***@travelersvideo.com> wrote:

So it isn't pointless, it just requires a tripod.

It requires a darn good tripod.  How many purchasers of consumer camcorders
use tripods?

I travel a lot and my hobby is doing travel videos.  In all the trips and
all the many, many hours I've shot, do you know how many other
non-professionals I've seen using a tripod for video?  Zero.

More to the point, with the cheap glass used on most consumer camcorders,
particularly the ones that use zoom range as a marketing point, f-stop for
full zoom goes so high as to render the camcorder unusable in all but the
brightest sunlight, contrast is poor, fringing is apparent, etc.

"Joe" wrote...

Show quote

Hide quote

It seems like common knowledge. I've never seen any serious
refutation of the evidence.  The number speak for themselves,
don't they?  What's to parse?

I suspect that if you had a board of directors and a staff of marketing
people, things might look different.

They'd win the competition for the consumer market, but they'd still be
competing against their own prosumer gear.  The prosumer market is very
profitable as the margins on the equipment are much higher.

Prosumer equipment has fewer "features," but that's another discussion.  As
you note, it is a combination of glass, sensors and electronics, as well as
compression codec and bandwidth, that contributes to video quality. Consumer
gear, particularly low-end gear, compromises on all of this.  However,
scrimping on glass, sensors and electronics saves the manufacturer money.
There is no cost savings in limiting bandwidth.  The only reason for doing
so is to deliberately produce an inferior image.


Videomaker depends on advertising of consumer gear for its livelihood.
Similarly, Robin Liss' website tends to cheerlead because of its dependence
on review gear from the manufacturers.  Liss' site, however, has the
information you're looking for if you read between the lines, e.g.
"low-light performance, while good, exhibited significant noise and wasn't
very saturated . . .", etc.

All I know is that I would have liked to get a miniDV camcorder with video
as good as the TRV900.  When I got around to purchasing one, there was not a
single consumer model, including Sony's own TRV900 replacement, that
remotely approached this level of quality.  Instead, I had to buy a prosumer
model that cost a lot more, not because I have aspirations to be a
professional videographer (I don't), but because I wanted high-quality
video.  Now, as I contemplate moving to high-def, I'm faced with the same
situation.  AVCHD machines (which are all consumer HD machines) all have
limited bandwidth, resulting in poor quality video.  HDV machines (which are
only prosumer machines) don't have limited bandwidth and produce much, much
higher quality video.  Again, I'm going to have to go the prosumer route
because of specific marketing decisions by the camcorder manufacturers.

Show quote

Hide quote

On 7/02/2007, PTravel posted this:
<SNIP>

There is one possible way that restricting bandwidth might save money.
Higher bandwidth requires higher processor speeds and probably more RAM
as well, and thus is more expensive. Maybe...

I have no idea if the difference is enough to matter in the given
situation, however. For no particular reason, I just wanted to point
out a possibility that might get the mfrs off the hook.

Of course, there's an application of Occam's Razor here: namely, that
they really do it on purpose, as you guys seem to think :-)

Please keep in mind, all of you, that I'm completely green at all of this
video stuff- but, where do you draw the line between consumer and prosumer?
Is there some price range?

BTW, I've checked out many of the web sites and discussion boards you folks
have referred to- and they're great! I'll just keep researching until I can
make a good decision. Whenever I spend more than $100, I want to be sure
it's the right choice.

Joe

Show quote

Hide quote

I'm not sure of the answer to that.  "True" prosumer gear is easily
identified by its features: XLR inputs for mikes, zebra bars for exposure,
full manual, etc.  Sony and Canon make more consumer-friendly versions of
some of their prosumer gear, e.g. Sony's VX2000 and VX2100 are
"consumerized" versions of the PD150 and PD170, and Canon's GL2 is more
consumer-oriented than the XL2.

However, some manufacturers (Panasonic comes to mind) have made produced
what are purely consumer machines that are dressed up to appear to be
prosumer equivalents, e.g. Panny's 3CCD consumer line (I don't recall the
designation Panasonic uses) are, clearly, consumer machines -- you can tell
from their specs, their performance but, mostly, their features.

I don't know if anyone recommended it yet, but you might want to check out
dvinfo.net.  It's a website for professional videographers, though amateurs
are welcome (as long as they as intelligent questions ;) ).  As I recall,
you're looking for a machine to shoot in forests.  When I think of forests,
I think of places that are frequently rather dark, which means you need good
low-light peformance, something that you will not find in _any_ consumer
camcorder at this point.

Show quote

Hide quote

It makes sense of course. While AVCHD is said to be twice as efficient as
HDV, such high compression has it's trade-offs. Now, one could say, if you
know the limits, you can work around them. Probably the average consumer
will not even realise these motion artifacts. I mean, have a look at tv
nowadays, and the picture quality.... they might think that if this happens
on their own camera, it's something normal :-)) (last night for instance I
was watching UK Channel 4's Best War Movies program. They ripped the
samples off DVD, but the compression was so high: the banding made me
sea-sick and cry. And today, on, for crying out loud, the BBC, the footage
they showed in the end of Diana at the Concert for Diana, was so blocky, it
was just shocking to watch!).

But there are some tiny Sony HDV-cams which are, IMHO, not aimed at the
pro-sumer market. I think AVCHD is especially meant to be able to record
with tiny data-rates, so you can record to small hard-disks and DVD's etc.

cheers

-martin-

Show quote

Hide quote

Show quote

Hide quote

This is a nice summation - and, BTW, my last good camera is FS, a TRV900
in perfect condition, listed at www.donferrario.com/ruether/fs-camcorders.htm
(I've had to get out of video and photography due to health issues...).

Show quote

Hide quote

<snip>

If there was any doubt as to your profession before, there is
none now;-0)

Circumstantial = Hard;-0)

Not meant as a flame, more as a roast to your lucid and
enlightening posts, much appreciated.

Show quote

Hide quote

It does seem to sneak in, doesn't it? ;)

In a court of law, circumstantial evidence is both admissible and as
probative as direct evidence, i.e. both are "hard" evidence.  An example of
circumstantial evidence that I frequently give juries:  If you go bed at
night and there's no snow on the ground, but wake up to find your
neighborhood under 4 inches, that is circumstantial evidence that it snowed.
There may be other explanations, e.g. someone came around with a snowmaker
and covered your neighborhood, the laws of physics changed during the night,
etc., but the best inference is the most simple one: snow fell.


Thanks!

Show quote

Hide quote

<petg***@hotmail.com> wrote...
The published specifications of the cameras compared to the
potential bandwidth of the codecs they are using.  This is not a
new discovery. It has been discussed (and griped about) for
months (years?)

They all have motivation to keep the consumer lined "dumbed-down"
in order to protect their higher-end markets.

There's nothing to prohibit you from coming along and offering
high-bandwidth consumer camcorders.  In the list of conspiratorial,
anti-competitive issues in the world, this one certainly doesn't make
the top-10 list.

Show quote

Hide quote

I don't know - but since the FireWire connection and recording deck
are just passing and storing digital info and not processing it, it seems
likely that it would work so long as the HD camera used normally
records on D25 tape...