Which is better canon hv30 or sony hdr-sr12??

Question

which camcorder is a better.. The price dont matter I just wanna know which is gonna give the best picture, and be easiest to edit with..

I edit with final cut express, and it will mostly be used for sports such as snowboarding and motocross

Answer 1

I would take a miniDV tape based camcorder over a hard drive or flash based camcorder any day.

HV30 does 24p. SR12 does not.

HV30 does 30p. SR12 does not.

In either case, progressive frame capture, with a high shutter rate, is much better for fast sports than interlaced video.

The HV30 has a 43mm lens as opposed to the smaller 37mm lens of the SR12. (This lets more light in to the imaging chip).

The SR12 does 12x optical zoom vs the HV30's 10x, so that is marginal...

That said, the SR12 does have a built-in IR emitter for zero-light infrared, monochrome video capture that the HV30 does not have.

The SR12 has "SmoothSlow Record" (bursts a couple of seconds of non-highdef fast capture so playback is in slow motion).

Both can add lenses and filters, have mic jacks, have headphone jacks and manual audio control, manual zoom, focus, exposure.

HV30 saves DV or HDV to miniDV tape. SR12 does not (AVCHD encoding compresses WAY too much).

If I drop the HV30 and break it, at worst, I am out the camera and just that one tape - that I can probably get out of the camcorder and stick in another camcorder for recovery. If I drop the SR12 and break it - hopefully, there is not very much video I left on the hard drive and that has not been transferred. Otherwise, it will be an expensive project for DriveSavers.com to recover the video.

The HV30 can provide imported DV and HDV with iMovieHD05, 06, 07 and 08. FinalCut Express 2, 3 and 4; FinalCutPro and Pro2 on a PPC Mac or Intel-chip machine. You will need to custom install the Apple Intermediate Code - it is a QuickTime component in the MacOSX System discs. The SR12 requires an IntelMac running the CURRENT versions of iMovieHD08, FinalCut Express or FinalCutPro2 to decipher the AVCHD encoded, highly compressed, video. If you do MPEG2 standard definition in the SR12, you need to download and install StreamClip and translate the files.

If you want to watch your finished project in hidef, with the HV30, export the project from your Mac to the camcorder and plug the camcorder's HDMI into a HDTV... with the SR12, you have no such playback mechanism - but you can watch unedited video with the SR12 plugged into a HDTV.

I own and use a Sony HDR-HC1 and HDR-FX1 and I do all my editing on my 17" flatpanel iMac using FinalCut Pro and iMovieHD06.