Camcorder Recommendation for Badminton

[ctjcad]

A firendhas recommended to me the AVCHD format.

Sony looks quite good.

I need to get something soon. My old miniDV seems to falling apart.

..i have a feeling you're shopping for the After Christmas or After New Year's Sale??..

Sony, Panny and Canon are all good. As a matter of fact, i bought the Canon Vixia HG20 (hard drive format), early this yr. Price and zoom capability are quite good & reasonable. And looking at the prices, they haven't gone down much either. IMO, the technology is quite worth the price.

If you want to search a bit, you can go to this site. It's the one i used to search, prior to purchasing the Canon camcorder.
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ratings.php#

Good luck & enjoy your new tech toy!

[Cheung]

That's a good site Chris. Thanks for the link. It will take me some time to browse through.

[red00ecstrat]

Can u guys tell me the best way to back up my videos from DV tapes. Should I convert them all to avi files?
I know the easiest way is to back them up with a DVD recorder. And I was told the VOB file can still be edited with some softwares. But I really wanna know the quality and the size difference between AVI and VOB files. Thanks!
Sorry for an off topic reply.

[Cheung]

This is exactly the problem I have as well.

The DVD recorder option is simple but slow to edit. Then there is a need to archive as I want to archive on HDD as well as DVD.

[ctjcad]

Can u guys tell me the best way to back up my videos from DV tapes. Should I convert them all to avi files?
I know the easiest way is to back them up with a DVD recorder. And I was told the VOB file can still be edited with some softwares. But I really wanna know the quality and the size difference between AVI and VOB files. Thanks!
Sorry for an off topic reply.

- Stefan, i think you meant to ask which file format is better to convert the DV tapes into, VOB or AVI? IMO, all has their good and not so good.
- As for saving or converting them to AVI files, imo, they're only useful if you want to watch the video w/out a DVD or if you want to upload your video to a broadcast website (like youtube).
Overall, i'd say the AVI file is more flexible in terms of how one wants to watch it.
- VOB and AVI files can be edited with some softwares.
- As for the file size between an AVI or VOB file, well, it depends. If i recall, if the VOB is uncompressed, then the file will be the same if not much larger as an AVI file. However, there are new options which will compress a VOB format file. Quality-wise, both should be roughly the same.

This is exactly the problem I have as well.

The DVD recorder option is simple but slow to edit. Then there is a need to archive as I want to archive on HDD as well as DVD.

Cheung, not only that, the High Def. video (esp. a Blu-ray version) has a .m2ts file format as its default recording format. Thus, if you want to watch the video, you may have to convert them, first, to an AVI or VOB format.
From there, you can do your editing before deciding your final video format.

Personally, i'd convert any kind of digital video file to an .avi format, first. From there, i can decide whether to do any additional editing or leave them as they are in my HD or save/convert them to a DVD/.vob format.

[demolidor]

The best option is to use the software that came with the camera and import it to your pc in it's original format. Once on PC you can probably do anything with it that you want, perhaps even with the provided software.

Windows Movie Maker seems to be able to capture DV through firewire .

[Destricto_Ense]

VirtualDub is a good AVI editor. Also, I think the VideoLan (VLC) team are releasing a video editor soon.

[demolidor]

Here is another program to capture DV to your pc: WinDV (freeware)

[red00ecstrat]

Thanks guys!

Chris, I wonder if an VOB file was uncompressed. I've just backed up an one hour plus video to a single layer DVD disc (4.7GB) by using DVD recorder. And I had once used my computer to capture an one hour video from a DV tape. It was in AVI fromat. If I remember correctly, it was a lot bigger than 4.7GB.

demolidor, is it really possible to back up the digital data from a DV tape without converting it to other video formats?

[demolidor]

I read one tape can store close to 13GB data. DV and miniDV should be just digital data stored on tape and can be imported through a firewire connection (or USB).
Personally I/we went from Hi8 to AVCHD so haven't had to do it for myself. Did try it once at a friend's house and worked fine with windows movie maker.
This seems to be a decent tutorial, confirming you can import your video in it's original DV-avi format -> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...om-a-videotape

[ctjcad]

Thanks guys!

Chris, I wonder if an VOB file was uncompressed. I've just backed up an one hour plus video to a single layer DVD disc (4.7GB) by using DVD recorder. And I had once used my computer to capture an one hour video from a DV tape. It was in AVI fromat. If I remember correctly, it was a lot bigger than 4.7GB.

demolidor, is it really possible to back up the digital data from a DV tape without converting it to other video formats?

- Yes, an uncompressed VOB file should be quite large. It's roughly the same size as an hr long AVI file (if both use the same resolution and are uncompressed).

- Yes, you can download a video/digital data from a DV tape in its original format (use default program or other softwares). However, since DV doesn't have an "official" format and most of the computers out there are Windows/Microsoft-based, the DV tape format is often encrypted into AVI containers (.avifile.dll). One can also get it in Quicktime & MXF formats.

[red00ecstrat]

So, according to the file size and the video duration. The video that burnt by my DVD recorder was definately compressed!
I wanna store all the videos in the highest quality. And since I only have 30 something DV tapes so far. I think I m gonna convert my video to AVI format and put them into an external HD.
Thanks all for the detailed explanation.

[Mini Me]

being a .AVI file has nothing to do with quality or file size. AVI is just a container. the quality and file size depends on the codec and bitrate of the video.

the best quality you can get will be to copy the compress DV files directly from your tapes. if you can't do that then you'll have to play the DV files and recapture the video stream on your computer using a lossless codec, e.g. huffyuv, before recompressing it into a smaller lossy format, e.g. h264. you're unlikely to be able to capture directly into a lossy format with excellent quality unless you have a super fast cpu.

the lossy format you should choose depends on what you intend to do with the files, e.g. MPEG2 if you want to make video dvds, h264 if you want to make bluray discs or play back on computer, leave it in lossless format if you want to do more editing.

virtualdub only works with VfW (video for windows) codecs, e.g. xvid, so you can't use it to encode AVC files.

[demolidor]

Hehe I wouldn't recommend using Huffy, you'll run out of space in no time (tried a long long time ago). I do think the windows movie maker directly imports the content on the tape as is without converting if you choose the DV-avi option (or maybe I just think so because HDV can do it). Only problem with tapes is even copying as is will happen with x1 speed so it may be mistaken as converting. The HDV format that records on miniDV has the same downside compared to harddisk and flash memory.

Another WMM step-by-step tutorial, can't get any clearer than this: http://makeinternettv.org/edit/win.import-dvtape.php

They say the filesize ends up being roughly 13GB so whether or not any conversion takes place, 13GB for 1 hour of SD video makes for pretty outstanding quality....

[Cheung]

Any opinions on the Panasonic? I haven't checked out the price in the shops

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...Comparison.htm

[demolidor]

Any opinions on the Panasonic? I haven't checked out the price in the shops

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...Comparison.htm

Don't think you can go wrong with any of the Canon, Sony, Panasonic, JVC top of the range models. The low light image does look a little on the soft side and apparently it's sharper on it's flash memory sister model the TM300 of which there is an upgraded model available: HDC-TM350 with 64 GB SSD memory (http://www.trustedreviews.com/camcor...c-HDC-TM350/p1). I'd probably pick that one over the HS300, if it's available (seems JP and Europe model only in addition to being a limited model, do see it available on eBay from Japan). The Sony to me looks the most detailed of the low noise 100% crop comparison pics but best to rely on your own impressions .

It's always usefull to check out actual camera footage on YouTube or Vimeo as well (although not everyone converts their video's in top notch quality).

[ctjcad]

Any opinions on the Panasonic? I haven't checked out the price in the shops

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...Comparison.htm

..i haven't tried it, only looked at the specs/reviews. so here's my opinion only:

- You can't really go wrong with a camcorder that's ranked in the top 3 for 2009 (@camcorderinfo)..
- There are always good and bad to every camcorder. For HS300(e.g. better ability to record @ night-time/low light, bigger storage space).
- However, i'm just considering the Max. bitrate capability which is only 17 Mbps in comparison to 24 Mpbs. The bitrate affects the quality of the video by allowing how much data is stored per second. Of course, the higher the bitrate the more storage space it needs.
So, if you have the Panny and Canon and want to record at the same resolution of say 1920x1080, the Canon would have a slightly better quality video because it records more data (mega bits) per second. The Panny version will record in a "compressed" version.
Further, one can always take a high quality video file (i.e., a large data file) and shrink it (compress it) down with editing software. But it’s nearly impossible to take a low quality (compressed) file and boost its quality by adding more data.

In any rate, the difference in Mbps is minimal. And if one can live w/that, then i'd say, that's fine. For me, i'd say both are equally as good. The price of the Panny is also nice, but maybe not for my pocket.
Enjoy whichever you choose, Cheung!.

Some test videos, out of several, from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxyaiqT8hME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-y211tipp0 (Night time/low light, looks like it was shot in HK??)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diDtJu38rL0 (Moon/night)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ouT3LPrXQ (Day)