Dvd video camera. HDD?

Question

i am thinking of buying a dvd video camera as the one i have right now is tape and is real hard to transfer the video onto computer. i heard that if you have a dvd video camera, you just eject the dvd from the camera, place it on the computer, and can drag and drop the file. is this true? also if u have a HDD video camera, do you just plug in the usb to transfer it into the computer?

Answer 1

Both answers are "yes". There are just a few differences:

The DVD cam (DVD-RW disc) you do not need to pop it into computer, you can use it directly and play it in DVD player - as long as you learn to make nice, non-boring video, so you do not need to edit/cut them.

If you do want to edit it, just keep in mind, that on that DVD disc will be VOB files. Those are mpeg2 videofiles, but as they are, they are virtually non-editable, You would need to convert them into classical MPG files. Which is NOT a problem, a lots of free converters everywhere, just something you need to think about. This one is fast conversion since it needs to re-write the file header only and copy the file body of data.

The HDD camocrder is just the opposite - first, you fit likely more hours of recording. And you have more flexinbility to set a quality / length of the recording.

Then you just connect the USB cord and transfer the files like from an external HDD. Those will be likely MPG files - wither mpeg2 or mpeg4 coded videos (depends on your preset).. Then you would have to convert them into mpeg2 (if they are mpeg4) nad/or to create VOB files from mpeg2, to burn them on DVD disc.

Hope it explains, any more questions? :-)

Have fun

Johnny

Answer 2

No that is not true about the dvd, If you have a mini dvd camcorder….

You will have to finalize your dvd in the camera and then put the dvd in your computer 's DVD burner (top loading only) and then you will have to convert the files (i downloaded handbrake file converter free) and import them into your editing program. Use the HELP feature in your editing program to learn about editing. Once you are ready to burn, your project will be burned to a different DVD and you can file the original away.

The hard drive camera uses a USB cord.

Minidv (cassettes) hads the best quality.

Answer 3

No you can't "just eject the dvd from the camera, place it on the computer, and can drag and drop the file".  First of all the DVD has to be finalised in the camcorder - once you've done this you can't write anything more to that disk.  The disk itself is written in Universal Disk Format (UDF) - Windows Explorer can't read it, so there's no drag and drop.  You'll need a separate app such as DVDDecrypter to rip the files.  The .vob files are really just MPEG-2, but Windows Movie Maker can't edit them - you'll need to buy an editor.

Hard drive camcorders allow very easy file transfers but, again, the video format is MPEG-2.  Some manufacturers have their own implementations, which are even worse to edit.

If your current camcorder is MiniDV, video capturing shouldn't be hard!