Jirehmpro
Member
Hi,
I want to know the difference between the Hd ( harddrive) and DV tape Camcorder. especially in when editing and image quality wise.
thank you.
XTR-91
Member
DV (digital video) tape camcorders still remain as the standard medium for recording video with the advantage of removable storage. The content is DV-AVI, which is nearly uncompressed. Most hard disk camcorders record files as MPEG-2 (which is compressed). As far as image quality, there really is no difference. Of course there is the higher end and lower end camcorders that vary in video quality, but you shouldn't judge it by the type of recording medium.
zoobie
Member
The consumer is leaning toward HDD since it's perceived to be cutting edge and more convenient (?). I always suggest you ask yourself these questions.
What happens if the cam's HDD fails? Where will I store my offloading? Do I need to buy a Blu-ray burner? Do I need more computer HDD's? If Hi-Def cam, do I need to buy a new TV and/or will I need to buy a new computer to edit?
Jirehmpro
Member
Thank you but Adobe premiere Pro dont take MPEG-2 file with no audia why? so peolple using adobe dont need to have an HDD camcorder? I have heard some people
complaining about FCP not taking sound for MPEG-2
jerronsmith
Moderator
In general Premiere Pro can read audio in MPEG-2 files. It actually depends on how the audio is written to the MPEG-2 file in the first place.
A mini Dv tape (DV25) has a bitrate of 25, 000 kbps while the average dvd is closer to 5,000 kbps, that means there is up to 5 times as much information available to display your images on a DV tape as in an MPEG-2 file. Mini DV is compressed in much lower ratio than MPEG-2 is, I believe it is either 5:1 or 4:1, I forget though.Additionally, MPEG-2 is not a frame based system where each frame equals one picture, but is a GOP based system. This makes editing it a bit more resource intensive and can lead to your editing application having to recompress the video as you are editing it, which can lead to quality degradation or lag time.
A real question to ask is do you need to that extra quality though. That will depends on how you plan to display your video.
jimcvideo
Member
I run screaming when I see HDD camcorders. Generally speaking I'd avoid them. For starters there's the compression issue mentioned above. To make the cameras as affordable as possible, they make the HDD's as small as possible. This means making super small files, such as mpeg2. While mpeg2 is fine as a final delivery, it stinks to edit. Beyond that, HDD's are noisy suckers. That spinning set of discs inside makes a distinctive whirring noise, and the head is loud as anything. In another thread, there was someone complaining about the clacking noise as the head wrote to the drive. And the bad news: Hard Drives only get louder as time goes by! And while they're way more durable than they used to be, hard drives are still a fairly fragile beast. You can throw a MiniDV tape off the roof of your house and it'll be just fine. If that HDD camcorder slides out of your hands and hits the ground too hard, you're toast.
Of course, tape ain't perfect. The tape deck makes some noise too, but at least it's a consistent noise that won't make all these random clacks as you go. Given the current technology, I think tape is still th best, most affordable option for consumer and prosumer video producers.
Peter Milliken
Member
Personally, I would select a camera that uses memory cards only.
A HDD is just one more mechanical piece of gear to fail - plus you have the potential problems of noise etc as mentioned previously. My previous camera was a tape based unit and they can have problems when you transfer to computer (it took me 5 capture attempts recently to get a clean capture of a recording - no idea why the first 4 suffered from jerkiness in the captured video), plus it takes real-time to get your video off i.e. a 1 hour recording will take 1 hour to capture.
A memory card based unit is more "electronic" i.e. fewer components to fail and video extract is literally as fast as your computer can copy the files!
These days you have far greater storage on a memory card based camera than a tape based unit i.e. I have just purchased a Panasonic HDC-TM200 (High Def) which comes with 16G built in - 2 hours recording time at full resolution. Plus add a 32GB card and I have an extra 4 hours.
The only issue is then what do you do when on holidays? tapes are cheap, memory cards are expensive. Well, most people have a laptop these days, just bring it on holiday with you and download every night. I picked up a 320GB 2.5" external HDD last week that runs off USB power - small, and compact and plenty of storage for video files! (especially in m2ts format).
And think - if you're taping a wedding or whatever you need to constantly check how much time is left on your tape - with 6+ hours of recording time available on memory cards I either don't have to check at all or maybe just once on the day! :-)
So stay clear of HD based cameras and go memory card is my personal recommendation.
Peter
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