Needing a new camera under $700

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

EdDV, thanks for your help. I am searching but need to act quickly. What does the HV30 have that the likes of an HF200 does not? I am trying to do comparisons but am finding it hard. I will keep trying. Thanks.

The HF200 is AVCHD format. Budget a new computer.
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic370625.html

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

This is what I found.
AVCHD: 8GB per hour

HDV: 40-50GB per hour depending on the software (Is this true? You need a pretty big hard drive to keep a lot of video on your computer if so.

AVCHD: Record and playback in 1920X1080 Full-HD.

HDV: Record and playback in 1440X1080 HD (1920X1080 video from the Full-HD CMOS sensor is converted to 1440X1080 HDV and then recorded to miniDV tape. 1440X1080 HDV is then stretched to 1920X1080 during playback and editing.)

AVCHD: USB 2 is good enough for copying “video files” to the computer.

HDV: FireWire is needed to stream video from the camcorder to the computer and a fast hard drive is needed to capture the streaming video without dropping frames. Many notebook hard drives are not fast enough.

HF-200 has 1/4" sensor, HV-30 ~1/3" (better low light and less noise).
HDV is ~12GB/Hr @25 Mb/s
AVCHD MXP is ~12GB/hr @24Mb/s, essentially the same.

Firewire transfer is at ~25Mb/S. A 5400RPM laptop drive easily handles 160Mb/s sustained. No special drive is required.

AVCHD requires a more powerful display chipset to play at 1x (PureVideoHD or AVIVO-HD) or an extremely fast CPU for unaccelerated playback. For editing AVCHD, Vegas Pro needs a Core2-Duo or Quad (new machine) or a Cineform NeoScene codec ($129). You can obtain sample footage now and experience the editing limitations before you buy the camera.

The HF-200 does not downscale to DV in the camera like the HV30 does so you will need to compute your downscales to DVD. This will take hours per hour before you can have a watchable DVD for team review. THE HV30 allows DV transfer and a quick DVD recorder"daily" for quick review. HD transfer can be done later for key plays and then transferred to Blu-Ray or DVDR for HD Blu-Ray playback.

1920x1080 vs 1440x1080 does not necessarilly give a better picture. Most broadcast HD is mastered at 1440x1080 for better compression efficency (i.e. less compression per pixel). 1920x1080/29.97 h.264 ideally needs >30Mb/s especially for high action.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

AVCHD: Editing 1920X1080 video and AVCHD compression require more computing power.

HDV: Editing 1440X1080 video requires less computing power.

AVCHD: Most notebook hard drives can playback 8GB/hour AVCHD video without dropping frames.

HDV: Many notebook hard drives cannot playback 40GB/hour HDV video without dropping frames.

Both HDV and AVCHD MXP access the disc at ~ 25Mb/s. That is not the propblem. h.264 1x playback decode takes more CPU/GPU assist than HDV MPeg2. Most notebooks cannot play AVCHD MXP. Get a test file and test your notebooks and desktops.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

AVCHD: Sony Vega Pro can edit and then save back to AVCHD format. Several companies will (if not already) add this capability to their upcoming software. ( I have Sony Vegas Pro 8.1 for 64 bit Vista.

HDV: Pretty much all video-editing software can already handle HDV.

AVCHD: Backing up 8GB/hour video is easier.

HDV: Backing up 40GB/hour video is more expensive and takes longer.

AVCHD: Can record an entire 2-hour-long event without stopping, using a 16GB memory card or 7 hours with a 60GB HDD.

HDV: Must change tape every 60 to 80 minutes.

AVCHD: Hard drives can fail and lose all videos so memory cards are safer.

Still wrong on file size. HDV and AVC MXP are both about 12GB per hour. HDV is usually judged superior quality vs. AVCHD due to compression artifacts and other noise. If you use 8GB per hour setting, the compression artifacts will be greater.

Flash cards (level 4) are expensive vs. MiniDV tape. You need to budget ~$16/hr. vs ~$3-4/hr for tape. Tape gives you an instant backup and is superior for long term archive storage. Memory cards are not reliable for long term storage.

HDV over IEEE-1394 can be recorded continously to a notebook computer's hard drive or a media server. Most AVCHD cameras do not stream USB2 at full resolution during recording. Both output uncompressed 1920x1080i over HDMI during recording but HDMI recording requires an expensive capture card (Aja or BlackMagic) and a fast computer for real time encode.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

HDV: Videos are relatively safe on the tape for a few years. Some of our 7+year-old digital 8 tapes have developed playback problems (noise, distortion) so backing up tapes is a good idea.

AVCHD: Most companies are developing new AVCHD camcorders and the IQ is surpassing all but one or two of the latest HDV consumer camcorders.

HDV: Most companies have stopped or will stop developing HDV consumer camcorders in the near future. (Is this true?

See for yourself if this is true: Most consumers cannot notice any IQ difference comparing the top camcorder from each format emoticon - smile

The bottom line is: Both formats will push your computer to its limit

HDV and AVCHD MXP are judged similar PQ/IQ. HDV has less H resolution but also less noise and compression artifacts plus MPeg2 recodes with less loss than AVCHD. HDV is superior to 16Mb/s AVCHD with current codecs.

But we are talking low consumer cams here so quality depends more on the glass, sensor and processing of the camera section. The 1/3" HV30 beats the 1/4" HF-200.

Low Prosumer HDV is likely to be replaced by a flash based XDCAM model next year. HDV is a sub-set of the XDCAM standard that is optimised for DV tape. If Sony drops support for consumer HDV, the hierary will look like this

Consumer - AVCHD, generic h.264

Prosumer - XDCAM-EX, AVC-Pro (Panasonic), 720p HDV (JVC), 1080i/1080p HDV (Sony and Canon)

Pro - DVCPro-HD, XDCAM-EX, AVC-Intra

JVC will support XDCAM-EX. Canon hasn't announced yet if it will support XDCAM-EX or continue support for HDV.

Bottom Line: When you consider all of the above, I think HDV offers a better workflow.

1. Shoot HDV, transfer during recording to a laptop (dual tape and HDD recording).

2. Play SD DV IEEE-1394 to a DVD recorder for a quick DVD copy. The laptop has the HDV format files already transferred. The tapes are your HDV archive.

3. Edit an HD best plays summary in HD for Blu-Ray or media player playback.

HDV is better for a mixed SD/HD environment. If you record AVCHD, you have a difficult conversion to SD and a long path to an SD DVD unless you output analog to the DVD recorder.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

WOW. You seem to really know your stuff edDv. Ok, ok I get the picture. I still would like to have an SD card for quick loading. Is there any HDV cam that has this?

Only the XDCAM-EX models which currently start at $7790 list ($6100 street). XDCAM has variable bit rates from 18-35Mb/s and supports all popular HD resolutions and frame rates. At 1440x1080i and 25Mb/s HDV and XDCAM video formats are identical. That isn't to say the camera sections compare.
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcamexsite/cat-broadcastcameras/

HDV tape is 60 minutes. it takes 60 minutes to capture to the computer, and 13GB of storage space.

vegas pro works with it just dandy.

HDV only has one setting - 1440x1080 25mbps. an hv30 can shoot 30i 30p or fake 24p(avoid it), hv40 add normal 24p.


b&hphoto is your best bet. new hv40 $799

you can get 80-85 minute miniDV tapes. thinner so i wouldn't plan on re-using them, and 2-4 times as expensive.

if i had to go with long tapes for HDV i'd use something like this.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/430654-REG/Sony_DVM85HDR_DVM_85HD_Mini_DV_Video.html

A MiniDV/HDV tape can be 62 or or 83 minutes.
http://www.protapesonline.com/home.php?cat=13

They come in different grades from consumer to pro ($2-12 per tape). I have other posts that address tape issues. I use the $3 DVM63PQ tapes myself.

As said above, you can record direct to a computer over IEEE-1394 @12GB/hr or ~ 8hrs per 100GB. I'd advise the dual tape + hdd record technique for your work since you want reliability. This creates a backup plus eliminates dub time for the HD copy. If you want the camcorder to convert HD to SD DV, that requires a 1x dub which is faster than a software conversion.

As you can see, you need a process design before you buy equipment. You will also need labor (yours?) and time to encode for DVD. A DVD recorder does it 1x time from the camcorder dub.

PS: A tape change takes less than a minute. This can be done while the computer is still recording off the Firewire.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

So it is going to cost us $13 a game? Holy cow. I don't know if this is a good idea. Peoples taxes are already high enough. I can't see spending that much per game if we can't reuse them. Back to the drawing board.

I use $3 63 min tapes. 83 min version would be $6
http://www.protapesonline.com/product.php?productid=241&cat=13&page=1

If you can't tolerate a single dropout, the premium Sony would be $8 for 63 min or $13 for 83min
http://www.protapesonline.com/home.php?cat=10

Less if you buy on sale or in greater quantity.

16GB SD level 4 flash would be ~$32 for 78 min @24mb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134971
http://www.buy.com/prod/kingston-16gb-secure-digital-high-capacity-sdhc-card-class-4-k...206865168.html
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=16gb+class+4&tag=googhydr-20&index=electroni...l_1570dywud6_b

From page 41 of the HF200 manual.



http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&tabact=DownloadDetailTab...&modelid=17994

I use $3.00 tapes and have never had a dropout.

Tapes were discussed here. https://forum.videohelp.com/topic358642.html

The tapes referenced are much better than consumer grade and cost about the same.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

Can you reuse them is what I am concerned about.

the short answer is yes you can reuse any tape.

but, HDV is long gop mpeg-2. a single bit dropout can cause a 0.5 second blackout which is quite noticeable. i use decent quality $3 tapes and don't reuse them for HDV, whereas when i was shooting DV with the same tapes i would reuse them up to 10 times.

it's up to you, but the long 83 minutes tapes are thinner and more prone to mechanical tape malfunction.

Originally Posted by ingeborgdot

Can you reuse them is what I am concerned about.

Yes tapes can be reused. But don't you want to archive games? Tapes make a good archive medium for 5-10 years.

An I frame dropout, which would be rare, would only affect a few pixels over 0.5 sec not black the whole frame.