Digital camera movie clips versus MiniDV camcorder clips

[eskimo2]

Originally posted by StSanta
Depending on the application, consider lenses and filters you are likely to use.

Some skydivers here bought a bullet camera thingy with MiniDV. All nice and cool - all that ya have on yer helmet is the lens box more or less instead of a big camera that can get riser slapped to pieces, give ya neck injuries from hard openings etc.

They are however useless for the application of skydiving since they cannot be fitted with wide angle lenses. No filters can be added either.

For home use, they're handy. It really depends on what ya intend to do with it.

That’s really intriguing as I’d love to have my hands free while climbing, rowing or cross country skiing, etc.  What brand and model?

[eskimo2]

Originally posted by eagl
Buy cheap now and upgrade later...  Sony and others have recently released HD recording camcorders.  They're still priced well above $1000 but that should drop fast as soon as the new HD DVD format players/recorders hit the street.  The CCD sensors are cheap enough that the only thing keeping HD camcorders from getting cheap are marketing strategy and the recording media format.  Everything else, from the electronics to the lenses are more than good enough already.

As for hooking up to a computer...  Many new Nvidia chipset mobos have firewire ports built in, and some soundcards like certain soundblaster audigy2 cards also have a firewire port.  If not, like boroda said you can buy an inexpensive firewire expansion card.

I’m all for cheap and can’t afford to get near cutting edge.  My PC is an old Athlon 1400.  I’d have to buy a card.  

I’m not a big Sony fan.  They make good stuff but want way too much for it.   In comparison other brands offer the same for less money.  A good example is their still MemoryStick format; they are typically twice as much as other formats like CompactFlash or SD.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by eskimo2
So, like Baroda said, just install the PCI card in your PC and it was plug and play?  Or did you have to troubleshoot and monkey around to get it to work?  What did your card and wire cost?

On your camcorder, when you play clips on your PC how big are they and hows the quality?  Do you have anyway of posting even a 10 second sample clip?

The quality is good, it goes full screen really well.  Just to give you a reference I have a 3.5 minute clip in AVI format (couldn't tell you the compression or codec) and it recorded at 500mg.

The link was REAL easy to set up no problems.  The software controls the camera in playback mode and records off the camera in real time.  Then it allows you to edit.

personally I like WMM2 better.  It's easier to use and has a few more features.  I havn't tried importing using other software but havn't run into any problems getting any software to recognize the format and such.  Let me look around to see if I can find a clip and post it somewhere.

Eskimo here's an 11Meg file.  It's a few seconds recorded in "theater" mode.  It's also capable of wide screen, has a night shoot feature, and many other bells and wistles that I havn't figured out yet.  It also came with a remote, and wired microphone that also controls other features.  

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SVOFFKA9

[Furball]

are the DVD camcorders any good?  Do they write straight to a DVD RW you can play in a player or do you have to convert files etc?

Thanks in advance

[Chairboy]

Of additional interest, whenour S400 was stolen from my wifes truck in June, I bought an SD400 to replace it.  Thinner, and it can record at 30fps, or 15fps at 640x480.

[eskimo2]

Originally posted by Furball
are the DVD camcorders any good?  Do they write straight to a DVD RW you can play in a player or do you have to convert files etc?

Thanks in advance

If I was going to walk around Tibet for a few months and had no PC or means of uploading/editing I think the mini DVD camcorder and a bunch of mini DVDs would be the way to go.  I think that they are pretty expensive and add a bit of bulk though.  That’s just an opinion from someone who’s never used either though.

[eskimo2]

Originally posted by Chairboy
Of additional interest, whenour S400 was stolen from my wifes truck in June, I bought an SD400 to replace it.  Thinner, and it can record at 30fps, or 15fps at 640x480.

Holy cow!  That little thing records 640x480 at 30 fps!?  That sounds like a great option.
Can you post a short clip?  Thanks

(Downloading Gunslinger’s now, 83% done)

[Chairboy]

Nope, 640x480 at 15fps.

[Gunslinger]

Ok I had a brain fart.  Here is the sumery data from the righ click properties:

the size is 720 x 480 at 29fps

the compression is DVcodec

also keep in mind that I think I had it in "theater" mode.

[Chairboy]

Oh, and it turns out I was wrong.  The SD400 CAN capture 640x480 at 30fps.


...and 320x200 at 60 fps.

[eagl]

Guns,

Download limit reached already

Get azureus or another bittorrent server and host it yourself

[eskimo2]

Thanks Gunslinger.

The quality looks good, but 10.8 mb for 2 seconds, wow.  I imagine that’s uncompressed?
That size looks like about 854x378 (screenshot in Paint) that’s a tad bigger than 640x480 in area.
Hmm.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by eskimo2
Thanks Gunslinger.

The quality looks good, but 10.8 mb for 2 seconds, wow.  I imagine that’s uncompressed?
That size looks like about 854x378 (screenshot in Paint) that’s a tad bigger than 640x480 in area.
Hmm.

Yup that's a "raw" import strait from the camera.  WMM2 can scale it down in size.

[Gunslinger]

Ok here's one that I converted using the provided software.  It's only 2mb for 13 seconds.  THe orriginal was 50mb, the resolution and size suffered but again this is the provided software.  I'd use other stuff I have but I need the CPU power for other work I'm doing at the moment.

EDIT: http://tinyurl.com/94uz6

PS that's my dog.  Madam, she's a german sheppard if you can't tell.  She's very emotional and needy, much like a human woman.  I have to play fetch with her constantly to wear her out.....again much like a human woman.

[eskimo2]

Thanks Gunslinger, but I couldn't get that link to download.

eskimo