Again with the cameras...

[videoholic]

The camera can be firewired into a portable hard drive unit.  You don\'t need the flash cards.


Also, it\'s just the way the cards are built.  There are 4 2gig SD cards arrayed together to get that type of banchwidth.

There are supposed to be 16 gig cards in the spring and hopefully 32 gig cards next fall.  Prices will drop fast.  You only need 3 of them and you are done forever.  

Tapes are about 20 bucks a piece.  I just dropped 300 bucks last week alone in tape at SEMA.


And Sony\'s HD is only 10 MB/s from what I remember.  THat\'s why you get far more minutes in HD on a tape than in DVCam mode which is 25.

[Paul2]

Originally posted by videoholic
The camera can be firewired into a portable hard drive unit.  You don\'t need the flash cards.

Cool.  That is great because you can have an external HDD with say about 250 Gbytes and you can film and store over 5 hours of HD video running at 100 Mbps and uncompressed audio.

But this is no problems if you taping concert, or in a studio.  What if you use it as a handycam say going around the park, i find that\'s a bit inconvenience having to carry the external HDD at the same time.

Tapes are about 20 bucks a piece.  I just dropped 300 bucks last week alone in tape at SEMA.[/B]

that\'s a bit expensive per tape.  Unless is studio DVCPro or DVCam\'s tape, otherwise consumers MiniDV tape should cost about $7 per tape that can record up to 1 hour of SD Video running at 25 Mbps.

And Sony\'s HD is only 10 MB/s from what I remember.  THat\'s why you get far more minutes in HD on a tape than in DVCam mode which is 25. [/B]

I am confused here.

I am assuming you are talking about Sony HDV camcorder for consumers here...if so

I guessing you are talking 10 Mbits per second, not 10 Mbytes.  Because 10 Mbytes = 80 Mbits which I doubt MiniDV  support.

If you mean Sony HDV runs at 10 Mbits per second for HD Video, then that\'s way heavily compressed...and that would not makes sense if sony do that though if what you say is true...so I will stick with my guts and believe sony HDV uses around 25 Mbps for HDV...

either way, it\'s true 25 Mbps is still not enough bandwidth for filming High Def video.

[videoholic]

If you mean Sony HDV runs at 10 Mbits per second for HD Video, then that\'s way heavily compressed...and that would not makes sense if sony do that though if what you say is true...so I will stick with my guts and believe sony HDV uses around 25 Mbps for HDV...
_______________________
Nope..

It is well below 25 mbps...  That\'s what\'s so funny.  You can fit far more HD on a tape than SD.  It is ridiculously compressed.  Remember, I\'ts only really taking a frame of video every 15 frames.

And yes, I meant Mega bits....  It\'s always measured in Mega Bits for video.  At least I\'ve always seen it that way.


And I\'m talking DVCam and Beta tapes when I told you 20 bucks.  They are about 18 or so bucks a piece.  I don\'t use little baby tapes.  I use full size DV Cam and Beta.

The P2 cards are PCMCIA cards.  You can slip them into your laptop and dump it off while you continue shooting if you don\'t want to carry around a hard drive on your shoulder.  That\'s why if you were to buy this camera, you\'d want 3 cards.  This way you can have the camera loaded with 2 and be downloading and clearing the third.

Originally posted by videoholic
It is well below 25 mbps...  That\'s what\'s so funny.  You can fit far more HD on a tape than SD.  It is ridiculously compressed.  Remember, I\'ts only really taking a frame of video every 15 frames.

Nice info, if I remember correctly standard NTSC MiniDV is 25mbps with audio.  It\'s sad that Sony is doing even less than that for the price they\'re asking.

[videoholic]

It\'s actually more than 10.  I can\'t remember now.  Maybe it\'s like 18.  I remember it being very low, but not quite as low as direct tv.

[videoholic]

Bah, I need to find it.  It\'s saying it\'s 25mb/s, but I know you can get more HDV on a tape than DV.

Don\'t get me wrong.  I really lie the camera for an average camera, but for concerts and sports I would avoid it at all costs.  Just way too much compression.

[Paul2]

Originally posted by THX
Nice info, if I remember correctly standard NTSC MiniDV is 25mbps with audio.  It\'s sad that Sony is doing even less than that for the price they\'re asking.

Edit:  Actually, I did the math and to be more precise, it\'s around 24.9 Mbits for video, with audio, its another extra 1.5 Mbits which equal about 26.4 Mbits total.  24.9 rounded up to 25 Mbps...

Originally posted by videoholic
Bah, I need to find it.  It\'s saying it\'s 25mb/s, but I know you can get more HDV on a tape than DV.

Don\'t get me wrong.  I really lie the camera for an average camera, but for concerts and sports I would avoid it at all costs.  Just way too much compression.

I think the reason why HDV even if its record at 25 mbits per second and still can record longer than 60 minutes per tape may have to do with audio. they uses MPEG1 Audio Layer II instead of uncompressed PCM audio.

But on the spec, it said recording either on HDV or DV total time is 60 minutes...so I believe it should be around the same of 25 mbps for video bandwidth...

[videoholic]

Well I was in a seminar one time and the guy did say that you got more running time with HDV.  Oviously that would be something I would remember cause I found it odd.  

You can also firestore the video from this camera as well and get better bit rate.  

A buddy of mine sells these cameras and never keeps them in stock because he doesn\'t want to sell them.  THe video is just way too compressed to be happy with.


BTW, if any of you watch Hulk Hogan\'s show on VH1, they were out at SEMA and they had two cameras following them around and they were using this Sony camera for the show.

[Titan]

I too want to get a good camcorder but don\'t know where to start. I have a much more limited budget.

[Paul2]

Originally posted by Titan
I too want to get a good camcorder but don\'t know where to start. I have a much more limited budget.

Your question have finally been answer.

I was going to suggest you panasonic GS-150 or GS-250 when you asked that question last November.  But I am glad I didn\'t.

Because...

Panasonic recently announced GS500, GS300, and GS180 for their 2006 models.

And the interesting thing about GS500 is that it uses a bigger image sensor but cost $1,000 while compare to last year\'s model, GS250 that cost the same but uses smaller image sensor.

The GS300 probably have similiar specs of GS250 but cost $700.  A $300 price break there.

Remember, all models mention are 3 chips CCD.  In my opinion, its like only panasonic care about consumers.  They are like the only company that offer consumers 3 chips CCD starting price at $600 and now they even include optical image stablization starting only at $700.  Amazing.  I remember reading somewhere that optical image stablization are tricky to make on the camera and are expensive.

Link


Some stuff i like to quote from the link:

Las Vegas, CES, January 4, 2006 - At their press event today Panasonic announced updates to their 3 CCD line of consumer camcorders, including the replacement of their incredibly popular PV-GS400 with a new PV-GS500. The new PV-GS180 features a 10x optical zoom and a 2.5-in. LCD. The PV-GS300 and PV-GS500 use Panasonic\'s new 2.7-in. LCDs.

The PV-GS500 features a Leica Dicomar lens with optical image stabilization, the same 1/4.7” CCDs as the GS400, 4 megapixel stills, 12X optical and 700x digital zoom, 43mm filter thread, and focus and zoom on the multi-manual ring. The camcorder includes a pro-cinema mode, a 2.7” widescreen LCD, and the joystick menu controls introduced with the 2005 3 CCD camcorders.

1/4.7" CCD is bigger than 1/6" CCD that the GS250 have that cost $1,000 which is last year\'s model.

Add:  So there you have it, I suggest picking either the PV-GS300 or if you are more serious about picture quality, go for PV-GS500.  Good thing I wait too, because I am going to get the PV-GS500, I am quite excited...its like a $500 price drop with some features remove on the camcorder that is all right with me since picture quality is my top priority.

Oh last but not least, I believe they are coming out in a few months...so, again the wait...

[Titan]

I kinda want something I can use for movies and stuff (to make, not pirate ) so I guess picture quality is #1. I think I may wait until I actually start my major in film to look at cameras, this way I have a better understanding on what I need instead of jumping to buy one and buy the wrong one.