Help needed : What to buy

[osakachan]

Hi,
I hope to shoot video for my kid and have been reading reviews of camcorder. The more I read the more I am confuse of which to buy.
Let me categorise into the following which I take into consideration :

Storage media :
1) SD
2) DVD
3) Mini-DV
3) Hard Disk

Recording format:
1) HDV
2) MPEG4
3) Movie JPEG (WAVE)
4) MPEG2
5) AVCHD

Brand :
1) Panasonic
2) Canon
3) Sony

Model
1) SD range - Pana SDR-S150, Canon TX-1 and Sanyo XACTI HD2
2) DVD range - Pana DVR-D300,
3) Mini-DV range - Pana PV-GS500 or GS400 (if this available)

My requirements :
1) Good to have HD but it price is most important, so i think unlike I go for HD format. Also, I want to avoid creating too much storage. HD suck up space, so I think it may not be may choice.
2) Video is higher piority than still pciture (camera).
3) Looking for camcorder that is good at day and low-lights
4) Clarity is important
5) Video start up recording time is important. Does DVD and Mini-DV has good start up time compared using SD media?
6) Prefer record and play - I just want to record my kid and put to player
7) Looking at media/brand/model that has good recording time
8) 1-2hrs of recording

With the above in mind, I kind of came close to SD format and DVD. However, I am not sure if DVD has good start up time and I also heard that DVD is prone to error durig recording and may destroy the DVD is error occurs. If this is true, I think I should avoid DVD as I do not want to whole day of work gone to waste.

SD seems to meet most of my needs except it requires to transfer from SD to DVD for playing and storage. Not sure if anyone have experience with SDR-S150 and TX-1. Which is better bet? And why?

I would also like to hear opinion out there for dads who have beening taking video for your children on the model and brand you have chosen and the reasons.

If anyone has good brand or model you think it is strongly recommended, please advice.

Many Thanks

 

[sgvideoman]

Hi,
I hope to shoot video for my kid and have been reading reviews of camcorder. The more I read the more I am confuse of which to buy.
Let me categorise into the following which I take into consideration :

Storage media :
1) SD
2) DVD
3) Mini-DV
3) Hard Disk

Recording format:
1) HDV
2) MPEG4
3) Movie JPEG (WAVE)
4) MPEG2
5) AVCHD

Brand :
1) Panasonic
2) Canon
3) Sony

Model
1) SD range - Pana SDR-S150, Canon TX-1 and Sanyo XACTI HD2
2) DVD range - Pana DVR-D300,
3) Mini-DV range - Pana PV-GS500 or GS400 (if this available)

My requirements :
1) Good to have HD but it price is most important, so i think unlike I go for HD format. Also, I want to avoid creating too much storage. HD suck up space, so I think it may not be may choice.
2) Video is higher piority than still pciture (camera).
3) Looking for camcorder that is good at day and low-lights
4) Clarity is important
5) Video start up recording time is important. Does DVD and Mini-DV has good start up time compared using SD media?
6) Prefer record and play - I just want to record my kid and put to player
7) Looking at media/brand/model that has good recording time
8) 1-2hrs of recording

With the above in mind, I kind of came close to SD format and DVD. However, I am not sure if DVD has good start up time and I also heard that DVD is prone to error durig recording and may destroy the DVD is error occurs. If this is true, I think I should avoid DVD as I do not want to whole day of work gone to waste.

SD seems to meet most of my needs except it requires to transfer from SD to DVD for playing and storage. Not sure if anyone have experience with SDR-S150 and TX-1. Which is better bet? And why?

I would also like to hear opinion out there for dads who have beening taking video for your children on the model and brand you have chosen and the reasons.

If anyone has good brand or model you think it is strongly recommended, please advice.

Many Thanks

What is your budget? Above or below SGD$2000?

HDV and SD camcorders have the same output file size, 12 GB for 1 hour. So HDV doesn't take up more hdd space than SD camcorders. The only thing you might need is a reasonably fast computer for HDV editing. If you intend to do editing with HDV, you might want to get a Core 2 Duo. Otherwise capturing and playback alone are just fine if you have a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or an Athlon 64 3000+ and above.

Capturing means transferring video from camcorder to computer as a video file. No editing is involved. After capturing, you can playback the video file to watch it.

MPEG-4 H.264 AVCHD compression is still inferior to HDV MPEG-2 compression. If you want superior video quality, always go for HDV. HDV is going mainstream and SD camcorders will be slowly and gradually phased out.

As for storage media, avoid 4 GB SD HC flash memory cards as they can only hold 25 mins of video, unless you want to have several SD HC cards. Again, if video quality is important to you, avoid DVD or HDD camcorders. These camcorders apply further compression and the video bitrate is usually much lower than mini-DV based camcorders. Get a mini-DV tape camcorder as the video bitrate is 25 MBps, compared to 8 Mbps video bitrate for DVD or slightly higher for HDD camcorders.

You can get a HDV camcorder for SGD$2000.

 

[sgvideoman]

Also take a look here for more info:

http://forum.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=277733

 

[sgvideoman]

If you still want SD, go for Panasonic NV-GS500 as it has 3CCD with MEGA OIS as well as many manual controls.

Picture Source: CNET.com Australia

Look for "OIS". It is SGD$1500 I think.

 

[sgvideoman]

Stabilization is very very important if you are looking at consumer class camcorders. Most of us do not have rock steady hands.

 

[osakachan]

If you still want SD, go for Panasonic NV-GS500 as it has 3CCD with MEGA OIS as well as many manual controls.

Picture Source: CNET.com Australia

Look for "OIS". It is SGD$1500 I think.

Many thanks for the advice. Is the GS500 using a min-dv media. I think the Sd is for still. Maybe Panasonic allows both on SD...Anyway, from camcorderinfo, the GS400 is a better buy than GS500, but not sure if it is still selling now since it is a outdated model.

 

[osakachan]

What is your budget? Above or below SGD$2000?

HDV and SD camcorders have the same output file size, 12 GB for 1 hour. So HDV doesn't take up more hdd space than SD camcorders. The only thing you might need is a reasonably fast computer for HDV editing. If you intend to do editing with HDV, you might want to get a Core 2 Duo. Otherwise capturing and playback alone are just fine if you have a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or an Athlon 64 3000+ and above.

Capturing means transferring video from camcorder to computer as a video file. No editing is involved. After capturing, you can playback the video file to watch it.

MPEG-4 H.264 AVCHD compression is still inferior to HDV MPEG-2 compression. If you want superior video quality, always go for HDV. HDV is going mainstream and SD camcorders will be slowly and gradually phased out.

As for storage media, avoid 4 GB SD HC flash memory cards as they can only hold 25 mins of video, unless you want to have several SD HC cards. Again, if video quality is important to you, avoid DVD or HDD camcorders. These camcorders apply further compression and the video bitrate is usually much lower than mini-DV based camcorders. Get a mini-DV tape camcorder as the video bitrate is 25 MBps, compared to 8 Mbps video bitrate for DVD or slightly higher for HDD camcorders.

You can get a HDV camcorder for SGD$2000.

I think I missed out stating my budget. . I have 2 extreme budget actually. If I can find a good cam, I hope to invest about 2K. My concern is the HD format is not finalised and it is still new. I don't want to pay for their R&D cost just to buy a latest model.

Based on your advice, it seems that mini-DV is better option for quality and cost. Is there a good mini-dv brand/model you recommend that fit into a <$1K since I am going for the supposed outdated media storage. It seems Panasonic give good specification, but Sony is the leader in the camcorder arena. I am pretty lost which to opt for now.

Lastly, for my knowledge, does all media now give good start up time?
For HDV, you mentioned that it does not take up a lot of space? I thought HD format uses 4.4Mbyte/sec which would consume even more space? For me, if paying a lot more for a HD format may not be worthwhile - maybe another 2-3yrs after it is more common and price should be more reasonable then.

Thanks