VS9 - Camcorder recommendations - MiniDV vs. DVD

ppost · Post by **ppost** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 4:34 pm

I am evaluating the purchase of a Sony camcorder (either MiniDV or DVD) as a wedding present for my daughter. Over the past year or so I have become reasonably comfortable with the basics of video editing using VS9 (with help from this forum) on my accumulated Reg8, Hi8, & Digital8 tapes. I anticipate that I will now be called upon to edit videos that my daughter will be taking. I would like to know how editing MiniDV or DVD videos compares with the 8mm tapes that I have experience with. As far as ease of editing goes, is there any reason to prefer MiniDV or DVD?

Thanks

Pete

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 5:22 pm

I could be wrong so please someone correct me if that is the case.

I believe that DVD camcorders store the information in a compressed format such as MPEG2. Editing MPEG video is not recommended under most circumstances. If you plan to edit the video you would be better off with a DV camera in my opinion. Keep in mind, you would need a Firewire port on your computer to capture the video.

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 5:53 pm

Dear Pete,

it really depends on a lot of factors!

Guy is absolutely right when he suggests that if the best possible picture quality is uppermost, you would always go for a miniDV over a DVD camcorder.

There's no doubt, however, that transferring video footage from the camcorder to your pc for editing is probably easier with the DVD camcorder - it seems to me that in an ideal world you could simply put the mini DVD in your pc DVD drive and copy files at many times real time, as opposed to playing a tape in a miniDV camcorder. Perhaps some dvd camcorder owner/posters could confirm/refute this.

Although MPEG-2 is a lossy format not well suited to editing, if you aren't doing too much with the clips it's not bad. If you start getting fancy, it's best to use a workflow as outlined in the holy "Recommended Procedure" shown in the sticky at the top of the forum, and that would inevitably point you to a miniDV camcorder.

Most of the time, however, the quality of the end product DVD depends more on the source footage. Anything that makes a camcorder more convenient to use will tend to make the user shoot more footage, so your camera choice might be influenced by things like size, weight and battery life, and the arrangement of all the control buttons. My own JVC is pretty awful in the latter respect, and it probably stops me using it as much as I should, or using some of it's better functions.

Happy shopping!

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Feb 04, 2006 8:26 pm

You should also do a Search of this Board for posts on Sony DVD cameras, and indeed DVD cameras more generally. Depending on the model, a number of people have had difficulty in 'capturing' their video from the mini-DVD in the camera. Sometimes there are work-arounds, but sometimes they have little choice but to use the Sony software which comes with the camera, and this software appears to be both simplistic and unhelpful in the format it uses e.g. non-standard frame size. Sony is 'notorious' for producing products which have highly proprietary features which are 'locked' to only work with other Sony products, including hardware and software and all too often it is the user who is left to pick up the pieces.

I would be definitely looking at a mini-DV camera rather than a mini-DVD one.

And there are quite a few other brands out there offering equal or better quality.