Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > Digital Camcorder Video Thingies - Advice needed

[900MAN]

I'll keep it simple.
Get Dv-in and Dv-out and defo go for a 3CCD (three separate colour sensors instead of one compromised sensor) The picture is streets ahead, Panasonic do some good value jobbies.
Good luck.
PS Please go for the 3CCD thing

[MJS]

Ok, loads of good info as ever...

So to summarise a bit:

AV-In is a must if I want to use a bullet-cam - not sure that I do, but good to have the option to do it

3CCD is much better than a single censor

MiniDV is probably the better bet than HD or DVD as a recording format - then I just play the footage down the cable into the laptop - does the appropriate video editing software for any given camcorder come with it, or is that something that needs sourcing separately?

What is DV-in and DV-out?

Cheers

[Guido]

Originally Posted by Urban996

Ok, loads of good info as ever...

So to summarise a bit:

AV-In is a must if I want to use a bullet-cam - not sure that I do, but good to have the option to do it

3CCD is much better than a single censor

MiniDV is probably the better bet than HD or DVD as a recording format - then I just play the footage down the cable into the laptop - does the appropriate video editing software for any given camcorder come with it, or is that something that needs sourcing separately?

What is DV-in and DV-out?

Cheers

The editing software normally has to be sourced separately....I'd say anything supplied with a camera will be fairly basic.

DV-in DV-out just means you have both input and output for your video. You need 'INput' if you want to attach 3rd party items to your camera to source the video rather than using the camcorder's own lens to do it (e.g. bullet cam or recording from the TV)

Regarding 3CCD.....I have it on mine and it is superb but you do have to pay for it... Costs may have come down from when I bought mine so you may be ok on your budget.

[Bionicle]

Originally Posted by Urban996

does the appropriate video editing software for any given camcorder come with it, or is that something that needs sourcing separately?

What is DV-in and DV-out?

Cheers

I have found that Pinnacle Studio 10.5 is one of the better softwares for this, and comes with the nessesary card and cable for your PC http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSit...I+version+10_5
But i believe they also do a USB version cost for 10.5 is around 50 squid most likely you can pick it up at PC world.

DV-IN
Only a minority of camcorders have the reverse ability whereby you can send digital video back from the computer to the camcorder and record back onto tape. This is essential as you will want to take a video from the camera to the computer, edit it and then send the results back to the camera to store the final result on tape (perhaps the cheapest archiving method). "DV in" is not essential and many camcorders do not have it. (In fact all camcorders do contain the electronics for DVin but the manufacturer disables it for "commercial reasons". There are 3rd party widgets on the market to activate this function if you have already bought your camcorder as it doesn't have DV in but there may be guarantee problems). Increasingly manufacturers are including DVin as standard.

DV-OUT
All digital camcorders send their data into a computer using an identical firewire connector. This will be described as DVout and all camcorders have one. Sony call this an i-link and others refer to IEEE1394. They are all the same. Although firewire was the standard method of connecting your camcorder to a computer, USB2 is now as fast and camcorders are appearing, some with both firewire and USB2 and others with just USB2. It may be that the days of firewire are numbered. However, you must remember that your computer must have USB2 as well and most computers sold today are USB 1 which is 10 times slower. If you connect your USB2 camcorder to a USB1 computer it will only transfer at the slower speed.