Digital Camcorder Considerations

We want to get a digital camcorder.

There’s a wedding coming up, some travelling, later perhaps more interesting “subjects”, and then of course there’s the gadget dimension.

Among the criteria for selection are:

  • Relative ease of use: OK, I’m geeky, but devices with less than 85 keys are often impossible to figure out…
  • Dependability: We’re prepared to back up to HD and other media, but we still want to be able to trust the media.
  • Quality: The raw footage should be raw, not compressed. The images are more important than the sound.
  • Future proof: I know, not possible in this world, but it seems it’d be OK to go for HD?
  • Comfortable: Small and handy, likely to just be available and ready to go when needed.

Currently on the short list is the Sony HDR-HC3. Compared to its predecessor, the HC1, there are improvements as well as changes to the worse, but overall it seems it’s progress.

What to do?

ObSemWebAngle: Ideally, it should also include GPS integration and other ways of content description! ;-)

2 thoughts on “Digital Camcorder Considerations

  1. Quality: The raw footage should be raw, not compressed. The images are more important than the sound.

    Anything of a reasonable size and price (not many tens of thousands of $currency) is compressed. There are different kinds of compression which affects the quality and the workflow options, but they are all compressed. (The typical standard for “regular user” standard definition is DVCAM).

    – ask

  2. Right, it’s not a black/white issue.

    DV(CAM) uses MPEG2, which is a lossy compression algorithm/technique, and I guess it just doesn’t get any better than that (for a reasonable price).

    However, just like with JPEG the compression is configurable, one could hope that would also be the case for a camcorder…

    BTW: What’s “best”, in light of the above: DVD or tape?

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