How do you play miniDVs or DVs on a tv? What is the difference b/t DV and miniDV?

Question

How do you play miniDVs or DVs on a tv? What is the difference b/t DV and miniDV?

Answer 1

DV = Digital Video. It is a storage format.

Digital Video - standard definition video - can be stored on your computer, in your camcorder on MiniDV tape, on a camcorder connected to a special external hard drive (like those from Firestore) or on special flash memory cards like those used by the Panasonic HDX200. You can play DV formatted video back on a TV using any of the devices the DV information is stored, or you can use a miniDV deck. There are full sized pro versions and small consumer versions.

I do not normally play back miniDV tape. Normally, I capture video to miniDV tape, import it to my computer over firewire cable from the DV port of the camera to the firewire port of my computer, edit that video, then export the video into a format for uploading to YouTube or our to a DVD so I can playback on a DVD player. The miniDV tape is locked and labeled and put into storage. MiniDV tape is not re-used.

Generically, Hard drive camcorders and flash-based camcorders typically store video in MPEG2 format. This is much more compressed than DV which is why the quality of DV is better than hard drive or flash based dtorage (with the exception of the Firestore and P2 card methods). More compression = lost information that cannot be recovered. But technically, since the video on hard drive and flash based camcorders is just a lot of zeros and ones - digital - you *could* consider it "digital video" but in a very different, compressed (MPEG2) format.

MiniDVD video storage uses the same MPEG2 (for standard video) format, but compresses the video even more that the hard drive or flash based cameras - and that is why its quality is so bad when you want to edit it on your computer. Conceptually, they were a good idea - but the implementation has been horrible. The camcorder manufacturers should recall the DVD based camcorders and recycle them - and the people who bought them should get their money back.