How big of a difference in quality is Mini DV than HDD?

Question

i know that mini DV has better quality than HDD because DV has less compression but how big of a difference is it really? Will the amount of pixels effect the difference for example right now i have a mini DV camera with .8 megapixels, so will a HDD camera with lets say 2-6 megapixels have better quality than the .8 megapixel DV camera even though the HDD camera compresses the files?

Answer 1

the resolution between SD minidv and SD hdd will be the same, likewise HD minidv and HD hdd is the same.

the talk on megapixels - you'll find that it only makes a difference if your taking photos with your handycam - its no indication of its capability with video recording

in terms of compression - check out the article below on manifest

in summary:

miniDV avi - data rate 25MBits/s

HDD mpeg2 - data rate 3.5MBits/s

but

it all depends on what your desired output is - if you're gonna view your movies on DVD, it uses mpeg2 (3.5MBits/s) anyway.

so you shoot in miniDV (25Mbits/s) and by the time your watchin it on dVD its been compressed to 3.5 anyway.

if you shoot on hdd mpeg2, by the time you watch it on dvd its still at 3.5

by the way, more bits means, more accurate colours, means better picture quality

i am an advocate of always shooting with the highest quality you can. you can always downsize later - but once you record at low quality, its gone for good

if you want high res digi cams, check out the red one at wiki

more affordable - i would recommend a HDV sony or canon camcorder

Answer 2

Regardless of the number of pixels, the video picture will always be the same number of  pixels depending on the setting or camera type. Regular NTSC or SD Digital will be 720x480 which is 345,600 pixels and HDTV will be either 720p (about 1 Megapixel) or 1081i (about 2 Megapixels). Pixel ratings above these counts are for the still photos that can be taken by the camcorder, not the video.

So, a MiniDV and a HDD camera, both set for 720x480, will have the same number of pixels in the video unless one of them actually has a sensor with less than 345,600 pixels.

Where the difference in quality comes is in the compression. Compression can reduce the number of levels of luminance, so that a picture can look blocky. It can also cause pixelation during motion, so that a moving shot looks jagged and blocky. All of this is called compression artifacts. HDD cameras (and DVD cameras for that matter) use compressed MPEG2 video. While that may look okay if you connect the video directly to a TV monitor, if you edit the video the editor will have to recompress the video and that will add even more compression artifacts. I have edited both DV and MPEG2 video and can see a difference in quality in the finished product. Also, when editing MPEG2, sometimes the audio can get out of sync and edit points can be less exact.

So, simply put, no a HDD camera with a 2-6MP sensor will not have better quality than an DV camera with a .8MP sensor. But on the other hand, to the untrained eye, the differences in quality may not be noticed.

I prefer a MiniDV camera because the tape becomes a permanent backup of my work. Even if the camera should fail during use, I can always put the tape in another MiniDV camera and continue the project. If a HDD camera suffers a drive crash, all is probably lost. Also a HDD camera will require that you continually offload video to DVD or your computer to make space for more video. Also, almost all HDD cameras lack features I need, like a microphone input and a headphone output and a eyepiece viewfinder.