Digital Video Camera

When I bought a digital video camera a few months ago, I was under the impression that transfering to a computer and then subsequently to a DVD would be a very quick process, after all it is "digital." My camera uses Mini-DV to record video. If I want to save my video onto the computer I basically have to watch the entire video while it records (time consuming when your tapes are full). Isn't there a faster way to save to a computer? I'm currently connecting via FireWire (USB is available if needed) and am using Windows Movie Maker 2. Was I under the wrong impression and mislead when I purchased the camera?

 

Were you miss led, maybe…..wrong impression yes……..because it’s a tape, one speed only, both play and record, and transfer…….the only way for a high speed transfer to work, is having a hard drive kind of memory……..wobbles

 

I'm going to have the same problem kuku....the one I was given says digital, but it is tape media. Actually I am one step behind you. First I have to find the correct cable to link it and the computer. It's a wierd end connection and there was no cable with the v/camera.

 

Aww nuts. Mine didn't come with a cable to connect to the computer either. I had to go out and buy one... it was like $30 or something crazy.

 

*Gulp*....JVC by any chance?

 

Panasonic

 

Most video cameras are bundled with the necessary cables.

As far as the tape, it's digital tape and nothing like a "typical" tape.

It's not perfect, but it's the best video camera medium currently available, and it has a lot going for it.

 

but, it's still slow uploading into the computer.........I got cables with my RCA, but they don't fit, and it don't help........wobbles

 

It depends on your PC's specs, the size of the video file, the compression used etc.

Video encoding is one of the most (if not most) CPU intensive tasks there is.

 

Firewire is a common format for downloading from video cameras, and your computer may not have firewire. If not, you can get a Firewire PCI card for your puter pretty cheaply.

 

It is a bit misleading, because when you hear digital, you think of electronic storage with random read/write capabilities, not linear tape. The DV tape is still an analog format, but the data is being "written" to the tape digitally. So it's like digital data, but on an analog storage medium. It's kind of a "grey area" type of thing. It is a vast improvement over the older super 8, etc, but the whole DV is kind of a marketing thing, I think.

The "benefits" of DV are it's better video/audio quality. Not it's speed or storage method. Those are still charecteristic of analog.

But as was mentioned, it's pretty much the best thing going, becuase I've heard those direct-to-DVD sony cams suck, and we're still a ways from 200 GB flash storage.



-Steve

 

DV (Digital Video)tapes are not in analog format. There is no digital or analog storage medium. For example: the laserdisc worked the same as a CD or DVD, with a laser reading the data off the disc. The difference was the data was in an analog format as opposed to the CD's or DVD's digital format.

 

I was told that if I got the USB cable my audio would be out of sync with my video, thus I went with the firewire cable. Is this true?

 

No.


-Steve

 

As I (and Just Playin) said earlier, digital tape is not analog.

As the name suggests (and it's not misleading), it's digital.


Tape has a lot of advantages over recording directly to a DVD or hard drive.

About the only medium which comes close are flash memory cards, but they need to increase in size, come down in price and support more codecs before they are a serious competitor.

 

Okay, let me clarify. It is misleading in the sense that kuku bought a digital camcorder, and ended up with something that records onto cassette tape. That isn't what he was expecting, evidently. Perhaps he wasn't sure what to expect, but figured since it was "digital", it would record directly to a flash or optical media.

He was let down by the fact that to transfer to his PC, the entire video has to play linearly, in real-time, from begginning to end. This feels like the year 1988. To most lay-people, digital implies random read/write.

I'm not trying to argue with you, but give me a couple "for instances". I'll agree that DLT has advantages over HI-8.


-Steve

 

Most "lay people" wouldn't know what digital implies, or want to know, apart from the fact that quality is better.

No "lay person" is going to know about random read/write!


Anyway, if you want to know the advantages tape has,


It is cheap, small, the quality is great, supports all compression techniques, and it's robust.

Hard drive video cameras don't cope with knocking or dropping, and suffer from similar things a "typical" hard drive suffers from.

They are also much more expensive.

DVD video cameras (record directly to DVD) have a very long startup and slow down time as you have to wait for the disc to stop and start. (imagine your CD/DVD drive)

DVD video cameras have a small capacity and are much more expensive. (this may change with BluRay etc, but it's not cheap and still has many other problems)

DVD's are nowhere near as robust and have no protection outside the jewel case, not to mention their size.

If you plan on editing your shot, and lets face it, that's the fun of capturing videos, DVD cameras defeat the purpose and can be very problematic to edit.

They are designed to simply record and then play in a DVD player.

The image quality of DVD video cameras is nowhere near as good as digital tape.

Flash memory is about the only competitor to digital tape, but as I said earlier, it doesn't work well with some codecs, and size and price need addressing.