Singletrack Mountain Bike Magazine

• Overview
• Bike Forum
• Chat Forum
• For Sale
• Wanted
• Forum Help
• Classified Rules

Chat Forum

1. slowjo - Member

   I have been asked to find a mini dv video camera for my sister. I want something that will work well with Final Cut Pro. My son has a Panasonic NV GS230 which is brilliant but they are obsolete. She wants to set up a web magazine (she is a very experienced journalist) with video content. I have always been told that mini DV is best (given that £1.5k for a HDD enabled camera is too much) so that is where she ought to head IMO. We have the editing software and the high end iMac, all she needs to do ATM is the camera work.

   If she were a STW person, my sister would be a paid up member of joblesstrackworld or whatever it is so she doesn't have a mint to spend. Does anyone have any suggestions of what she should be looking at?

   Posted 2 years ago #
2. zaskar - Inactive

   Budget?

   Posted 2 years ago #
3. cbike - Member

   Stick to tape for now for HD unless she can afford £5000
   Consumer HDD/HD is pish
   The mid ground might be worth a a look. Second hand Sony A1 and the like.

   Hireacamera.co.uk and try a few before you buy?

   Posted 2 years ago #
4. slowjo - Member

   zaskar... budget... good one. I'd say no more than £500

   Sony A1 - I'll have a look around.

   Posted 2 years ago #
5. GrahamS - Member

   Isn't HD a bit much for web video content anyway?

   YouTube tends to use 480p for instance, I doubt many folk have the monitor size or the bandwidth for 1080p streaming video.

   Posted 2 years ago #
6. MartynS - Member

   have a look round for a sony pd150. might find a second hand one in budget The canon XL1 was a great camera in its day.. again second hand might put it into the price range.
   TBH anything that shoots mii dv will do the job for the web, you won't go wrong with something from a well known name

   Drop me a mail if you want any shooting/editing advice

   Posted 2 years ago #
7. GrahamS - Member

   What's the advantage of Mini DV over just recording to an SD card? (curious)

   (and where were you when I was asking about camcorders? Tsk.. call yourself an "S".. )

   Posted 2 years ago #
8. joemarshall - Member

   We have some Canon HF-100 camcorders. A bit above the price range, but the video quality is surprisingly good for a not too expensive consumer product. A zillion times better quality than our NV-GS something MiniDV cameras. They are SD card recorders. I think this is a big advantage for web video, as you have the video as a file on your computer straight away, so don't have to record it off the tape. It also puts things into clips each time you record, so you don't have to split up your tape.

   If you have the latest Adobe Premiere as your editor, you can edit directly from the files, so there is basically no import time. It really is super. A lot better than tape.

   If you have a Mac, and Final Cut, it doesn't play nicely with HD files, you have to import them, which takes ages (like 4-5 times the filming time). Absolute pain. We use Premiere. It is worth knowing what your editing software supports before considering anything other than a normal definition mini dv camera.

   Joe

   Posted 2 years ago #
9. molgrips - Member

   WTF are you talking about?

   HDD ie hard disk enabled camcorders are like £280 nowadays. MiniDV ones are in the minority in the shops as far as I can tell. You can even get a High Definition solid state or hard disk one for like £500.

   Is this thread from 2001 or something?

   Posted 2 years ago #
10. GrahamS - Member

    You can even get a High Definition solid state or hard disk one for like £500.

    The waterproof solid-state semi-HD (720p) one in the other thread was £179

    That's why I was asking what advantage Mini DV gives you.
    As far as I can tell the answer is better quality due to less compression.

    Posted 2 years ago #
11. joemarshall - Member

    I don't think it tape does give a big advantage over a decent SD card camera. Quality in my experience of a good sd card camcorder is much better than even a pretty good consumer mini dv.

    Joe

    Posted 2 years ago #
12. oliverd1981 - Member

    I'd try out one of the panasonic stills camera that has AVCHD lite video recording capabilities - they are supposed to give really good video results for the money - they don't compress the life out of the footage the way a lot of SD camcorders do.

    Posted 2 years ago #
13. slowjo - Member

    Thanks all... plenty to think about there. I'll have a think and revisit this again once I have done some research.

    Posted 2 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.