Is dv tape better than tapeless?

Question

wondering if there is an advantage to using camcorders with dv tape as opposed to those which use hdd, flash, dvd etc.

Answer 1

MiniDV tape store digital video in very low (or no) compression DV or with a little compression, HDV (high definition) formats.

Consumer internal hard drive and flash based camcorders store digital video in highly compressed MPEG2 (or a variant) standard definition or even more compressed AVCHD high definition formats.

DVD based camcorders use even more compression when storing to VOB or VRO formats.

Digital compression = discarded data = reduced video quality.

There are several reasons why the professionals are still staying with miniDV tape - or they use external hard drives (FireStore) or flash memory (Panasonic HDX200 P2 cards) that store in the same format miniDV tape does - DV and HDV. One of them is best available video quality due to least amount of compression applied to the digital video stream.

Get the best image up front, then YOU can pick and apply the amount of compression (and reduction in video quality) that you want for the finished project.