Mini Dv and Digital 8

[Paul2]

Hello,
I just bought a Sony Digital 8 camcorder today.  The model is DCR-TRV140 for $500.  What I wanted to know is, which is better, Mini DV Camcorder or Digital 8?  The reason i asked this because i know some of you guys here know a lot about these kind of stuff.

My Digital 8 camcorder have a widescreen mode which I likes, I also wanted to know does Mini-DV also have true widescreen mode too.

I heard digital 8 doesn\'t support progressive scan while minidv does?  is this true?

It a hard decision between digital8 an minidv.  I just go for the price and pick digital8.  am i making a bad choose?

Thanks for your advice.

I prefer mini Dv, its just my opinion.

Easier to store.

[videoholic]

I don\'t know enough about consumer cameras to give you a whole lot of feedback, but the good thing about digital 8 in the beginning is that tape was readily available.  That\'s not such a big deal anymore since MDV tapes are at every Walmart now.

I don\'t know how Digital 8 encodes to tape so I don\'t know what\'s better.

As far as I know MDV doesn\'t do progressive scan.  Maybe in their picture mode they do, but I don\'t think they do for video mode.  I don\'t know why they would.

Most cameras do widescreen now days.  Either letterboxed or stretched.

I don\'t know much about Digi8, but I prefer MiniDV.

The best progressive scan I\'ve seen so far is on the (larger?) Canon models, which run in true 30 fps. The Sony models (at least they used to) could only shoot 15 fps in progressive mode.

But no of the con/prosumer cams shoot in \'real\' widescreen AFAIK. They don\'t have true 16:9 CCD\'s - instead the crop/stretch the image from a 4:3 CCD, which gives lower resolution than a real 16:9 chip would.

[videoholic]

Originally posted by Samwise
I don\'t know much about Digi8, but I prefer MiniDV.

The best progressive scan I\'ve seen so far is on the (larger?) Canon models, which run in true 30 fps. The Sony models (at least they used to) could only shoot 15 fps in progressive mode.

But no of the con/prosumer cams shoot in \'real\' widescreen AFAIK. They don\'t have true 16:9 CCD\'s - instead the crop/stretch the image from a 4:3 CCD, which gives lower resolution than a real 16:9 chip would.

Exactamundo.  It\'s a wimpy widescreen, although if you shoot your images in Full mode, where they stretch the image and it looks in your view finder that the pic is stretched, then you are getting the max pixels.  You then squash it back down on your tv like you would do with anamorphic DVDs.

My camera is a true widescreen camera.  I lose quite a bit when I go to 4X3.  I have a wideangle on it though so it ends up ok.

I didn\'t realize the consumer models did Progressive.  Is that for computer support?  Not many people have progressive scan tvs.

Originally posted by Videoholic
I didn\'t realize the consumer models did Progressive.  Is that for computer support?  Not many people have progressive scan tvs.

No, they just shoot 30 full frames instead of 60 fields like usual. Indie filmmakers like the \'full frame movie mode\' on PAL Canon XL-1\'s as they shoot 25 frames, which has a certain film look to it - and is easily converted to film. But of course no digital camera comes close to a film camera in terms of contrast and resolution.

I prefer MiniDV, has never given me problems with my JVC cam.

If you are looking for a quality battle don\'t worry, they are just about equal when it comes to 4:3 interlaced material.  It all really depends on the CCD and if you can fit an anamorphic lens on the sucker.

But of course no digital camera comes close to a film camera in terms of contrast and resolution.

Lucas is shooting EP2 in 100% digital and will be viewable in its native format in select theaters which have a digital projector.  I agree that film still rules but it will be interesting to see what Lucasfilm can do with a super expensive fully digital production.

[Paul2]

I am a little confuse now and some of your input makes me slightly regret buying the sony digital 8 camcorder.

here is the reason:

most of you guys said "I prefer miniDV"
no true widescreen, that\'s the part that confuse me.  my camcorder have a 16 x 9 switch mode but, I am not sure if that\'s true widescreen though.  So, what is the difference between letterbox and stretch?  is my camcorder have the fake cheesy 16 x 9 cropping or the true kind?
progressive scan, i knows my runs in interlaced mode.

another of my concern is that the digital 8 camcorder record hi8(analog tapes) in digital.  Is this true digital or analog to digital conversion?  I believe MiniDV is true digital but not sure about digital 8.

Thanks for your input.

Originally posted by THX
Lucas is shooting EP2 in 100% digital and will be viewable in its native format in select theaters which have a digital projector.  I agree that film still rules but it will be interesting to see what Lucasfilm can do with a super expensive fully digital production.

Don\'t get me wrong, I\'d love to see "cheap" digital cams outperforming 35mm, but I just don\'t see it done in the near future. But it\'ll be interesting to see what Mr. Lucas can do with 24P Sony\'s. My bet is that the technology still have to mature a bit before it\'s a wise solution for the common man (filmmaker). It is the future though.

Paul- both are true digital.  Like I said don\'t worry about quality between formats when you\'re comparing sub $1.5k cameras, only worry about the CCD pixel count and lens quality.

I have a JVC MiniDV but my friend has a Sony Dig8.  His Sony has a better CCD than mine and the overall image is better than my JVC.  Then again my cam was $650 and his was $1k.

I "prefer" MiniDV because:

- it was developed from the ground up as a digital format, using new cassettes and didn\'t worry about backwards compatibility
- It is generally more compact and lighter for those long productions without the use of a tripod
- Dig8 was developed by Sony and unless it\'s TVs or videogames, I tend to stay away from their products

As for your Widescreen woes if you don\'t have a WS TV then why are you concerned?  You need a pretty expensive anamorphic lens and/or 16:9 CCDs to capture a true anamorphic widescreen image.  If your camera was under $1500 then I\'d bet yours crops the image with black bars or does some other trick for a quasi-letterbox mode.

Here\'s a true 16:9 MiniDV camera.  It retails over $8k, and it\'s the cheapest 16:9 camera JVC offers.

So to sum up:

1) Digital 8 is a VERY digital format, the info is stored in 1\'s and 0\'s with no Digital-to-Analog Conversions.  It uses backward compatibility with older tapes to appease the common consumer
2) Your camera is a 4:3 camera with fake 16:9 modes (just like 99% of consumer cameras out there)
3) Camera under $2k?  I\'m better it\'s interlaced.
4) Considering I\'m poor as *@$)@ I have way too much time on my hands to be knowing this stuff.

[Paul2]

Thanks THX, I feels relieved now.
So, how much does the cheapest anamorphic lens cost?  Sony have this one that cost $50 and its call Wide Angle Lens.  Are those anamorphic lens or something else?  by the way, my camcorder is 460k CCD and 290k with image stabilization.  When you say lens quality, do you mean optical zoom or something else?

[videoholic]

All a wide angle lens isn\'t going to do is give you a wider field of view.  The problem I have found with the cheap wide angles is they just take away a lot of the image clarity.

Originally posted by Paul2
Thanks THX, I feels relieved now.
So, how much does the cheapest anamorphic lens cost?  Sony have this one that cost $50 and its call Wide Angle Lens.  Are those anamorphic lens or something else?  by the way, my camcorder is 460k CCD and 290k with image stabilization.  When you say lens quality, do you mean optical zoom or something else?

Paul, you can\'t get the \'real\' widescreen on a con/prosumer cam. It\'s just impossible unless you have the wallet of Bill Gates. So if I was you I\'d forget about anamorphic lenses and whatnot. With a sub 8K camera you\'ll "only" get the "fake" widescreen (which can still look good enough depending on what it\'s for).

[Paul2]

I think I should do a little research before buying, huh?

I should of ask you guys about it.  Now I am stuck with digital 8 camcorder with only 460k pixels.  For the same price, I could get mini DV for 680k pixels.  I shouldn\'t rush and i thought the one I bought can do true widescreen, though I wasn\'t sure if it real one or the phony.  Well, at least digital8 is much better than vhs, svhs, 8mm,hi8mm the analog time.

Any reccomendation on what video editing I should buy?  My computer doesn\'t have a firewire.  Any recommendation on what stuff I need to buy like firewire ports or something so I can transfer my video to my computer and edit?  thanks.

[videoholic]

Firewire is by far the best way to go for you.  Getting a capture card and all of that is a lot of work and firewire makes it real easy.

You using windows or Mac?

With Mac, Final Cut Pro III is great.  Pretty easy to use and a lot of compositing capabilities.

On PC there is Adobe Premiere which is alright.  Combine it with After Effects and you can do just about anything.

If you are NT you can get discrete logics\' Edit 5.

There are a bunch of real basic editors out there too, but I don\'t know any of them.  At least I\'ve never used them before to recommend. I\'ve used all of these and they are all fine.