I am thinking of getting a camcorder and are considering the Sony HDR-SR7E and HDR-HC7E, any comment ?

Question

I am thinking of getting a camcorder and are considering the Sony HDR-SR7E and HDR-HC7E, any comment ?

Answer 1

well...i guess Sony camcorders are good, and maybe you can also try search on 88db to look for good camcoders....

Answer 2

HDR-HC7. MiniDV tape.

1) HDV compresses a lot less than AVCHCD.

2) Not all video editors claiming AVCHD compatibility will work with all camcorders.

3) With miniDV tape, the tape is the archive. With a hard drive based camcorder you have an extra step of copying to another external drive or to optical disc. BEFORE you start editing.

4) If you drop the camera, it may be a challenge getting the data off the hard drive whereas it will be easier to get the tape out, get another camera and resume shooting.

5) ALWAYS carry extra tapes. You can shoot for as long as you have tapes and power. With the hard drive, when you fill it up, then you have to offload to a computer or delete video you (think/hope) you don't want.

6) Look at what the professionals use - even if you aren't one, you can use similar tools:

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBus...

No internal hard drives. Maybe an external from Firestore, but that is because it stores in DV or HDV and not highly compressed AVCHD. The best process is to start with as little compression as possible, then compress all you want later in the process. Video compression = lost data = reduced video quality. If you start highly compressed you cannot expect "best quality" downstream.