For best looking video should i get a 3 ccd minidv or 3 ccd hard drive or a 1ccd handycam by sony?

Question

So I am making a purchasing decision over the camcorder im going to buy for my major in video production for side projects while im in school. My main concern is quality of picture i will be making music videos with a nonlinear editing program like sony vegas, ect. i almost got the 3 ccd panasonic gs320 minidv but i also saw a 3 ccd panasonic hard drive and a 1 ccd sony handycam harddrive. I know minidv is sort of going away ( which i a concern) but i have heard it has the least compressed and best looking quality for my budget (about 600 bucks) the other 2 cams are in that range but i dont think harddrive will have as good a quality as minidv i know it will cut out some capturing work but i really want the best picture i can get so between these 3 cams which do you think will give me the best resolution and picture and least amount of blurring as that is my main concern. I want brilliant colors not home videoish results. thanks for the input 10 points to the best answer

Answer 1

MiniDV is NOT going away.

Apart fromt he vast legacy of users for whom tapes will still be produced, the high end camcorders in Panasonics, Sonys and Canons ranges are all miniDV.

At the semi-pro level PD cameras and DSR cameras still use DV technology, (some mini, some full size)

In short, your local commissioned sales man may want to push you an HDD camera, but they are wrong wrong wrong.

Heres Why:

MiniDV uses AVI compression within frames.  HDD camcorders use higher compression (lower quality) accross groups of frames (MPEG2)

You shoot on MiniDV, you keep the tape, they are now so cheap why reuse?  You can go back in ayear, 10 years and re-edit.

You shoot on HDD and you will need to clear the drive at somepoint.  What happens to your rushes? Gone!

Unless you back up.  Extra effort. Whilst you are transferring the HDD contents to your PC then burning multiple data discs, I'll have went back to my miniDV library and picked the bits I need and be editing away....

If you want the best picture for the cash then yes 3ccd is the way.  Panasonics at this price end also give shutter, aperture & gain control.  Sonys give exposure + or -.

As you have already realised in your post, miniDV gives the  best picture quality at this end.

Yes it can be a pain capturing in real time: think positive, see it as a chance to re-aquaint yourself with the footage.

Answer 2

All hard drive, flash memory, and miniDVDs use the compression format AVCHD.  They can also use H.264, MP4 (MPEG 4), or a combination.  These formats occupy less storage than HDV and miniDV by using a much tighter compression ratio that often losses quality and color.  This loss is often visible but the average consumer does not realize or mind.  All three DV formats use a more improved version of MPEG-2, the same compression on the standard DVD.

If you truly want to be a filmmaker, you will learn that loss of quality - especially when it is visible - is usually NOT good.  Since you are want to get into filmmaking, you need to start looking at professional camcorders.  You need to learn how to use them in relation to audio as well as video.

* If you think understanding video is daunting, try talking to your audio engineer.  Audio is a lot more complicated and is always changing.  If you get bad video, you can sometimes 'fix it in post', but bad audio is bad audio - nothing you can do.   In many film styles, such as documentaries, commercials, music videos, and promotional videos, audio is the story teller, and video just adds the photos.

The Sony HDR-FX1 3-CCD HDV High Definition Camcorder w/12x Optical Zoom http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068J... is available for $1,000 at a few places on the net.

If you want to have a very compact camera like your current  consumer camera, try the Sony Professional HVR-A1U CMOS High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ENO... - we had this camera and enjoyed it

Now we have purchased the Sony HVR-V1U  3-CMOS 1080i Professional HDV Camcorder with 20x Optical Zoom http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IF8... and we are glad we own it!

The Sony Professional HVR-Z1U 3CCD High Definition Camcorder with 12x Optical Zoom http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00097H... was a favorite that made reality shows, documentaries, and cable tv shows you see today

The Panasonic AG-HVX200 Pro Camcorder with DVCPRO-HD http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OVF... is very popular and its predecessor made a lot of the reality shows, documentaries and cable TV shows you see today like the Sony above

The Canon XH A1 1.67MP 3CCD High-Definition Camcorder with 20x Optical Zoom http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000H7G... is also a very popular camera with smaller filmmakers

  

*** Why would miniDV go away?  It MIGHT on consumer camcorders like the one you are using, but almost ALL professional camcorders use some form of DV or miniDV - now referred to as HDV when used for high definition.  We listed about half of the most commonly used small format HD professional camcorders.  All these use some sort of DV, so do the other half of the list we left out.

- Hard Drives are also available for professional camcorders, but are often used as as add on to miniDV since it isn't feasible to store a hard drive.

Almost every TV show, movie in the theaters, or movie on DVD that you have seen in the past 5-10 years was recorded by some sort of DV media - in either SD or HD.  Some were also recorded by HDCAM - operates similar to HDV and is replacing digital betacam in many ways.  Some newer productions are also filmed with XDCAM HD - a more advanced form of AVCHD designed to specifically to work alongside HDV until a better option is develped.

Sony started in large format digital HD by making a series of camcorders for George Lucas to film Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III.  Now Sony has brought that technology to the other extreme - small format.

- There are other camera systems such as RED http://www.red.com/ and Dalsa http://www.dalsa.com/dc/ who are bridging the gap between small format and large format filmmaking.

- Even so, most small format Professionals currently live and die by DV.  You can store DV tapes for quite a long time and use them in both older SD cameras as well as newer HDV cameras.

This is not meant to be offensive or rude, but you definitely need to pay attention in class when you start your film major.  It would help you to start early and look up the history of the movie camera and the television camera, or study about some of the current formats.

- You would be amazed to find out that current american NTSC television is actually black and white television.  Other topics may interest you as well and help you think more creatively when filming.

  * Please be sure to also read up on the mighty mini cassette.  Understanding how it operates will definitely help you in editing.

On that same subject, you also might want to figure out wht kind of editing station you want http://motionpicturecentral.com/content/...

Good Luck!

Answer 3

Agree with Paul R. MiniDV tape is not going away. At least, not anytime soon. It provides best available video quality, is cheap and provides a good archive method with long shelf life.

Contact the school video department and see what they use - if they are prepping their students for pro work, they will be using miniDV tape or external storage that saves to DV or HDV format (like FireStore external hard drives).

Keep in mind that the video is part of the solution. Audio plays a HUGE part, too - and without a mic-in jack and manual audio control, you *could* miss the mark. The least expensive camcorders with both these items are the Canon HC20, HC30, Sony HDR-HC7 and HC9. They are outside your budget.

The alternative is to go with the Panasonic PV-GS320 or Sony DCR-HC52 or HC62 and use an audio field recorder like those from M-Audio, Sony, TASCAM, Edirol, Marantz, Fostex and others. Then, replace the camcorder audio with that captured by the field recorder.

DV/HDV compresses the digital video signal the least of the available consumer storage formats.

More compression = more discarded data = reduced video quality.

Good luck.