Camcorders with hard drives

[Charles Allison]

Anybody used one of these yet?
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/JVC-Everio-...roductDetail.do
Seems like it would be cool not to have to mess with video tapes.

 

[B Ozanne]

They look really cool, but I'm worried the cameras might be a little too new. I want to wait until the 2nd generation of these comes out.

It seems like they get some pretty bad reviews on Amazon, etc. I'm not sure how valid those are though. They're probably the vocal minority.

 

[David Drummond]

Problem with those is they record in MPEG2 so right off the bat you have compressed video to deal with rather than raw digital video. MPEG2 is ok for family stuff, the kids game and if you don't ever want to do anything with your storm video much but watch it.

 

[fplowman]

low light capability and as David says Mpeg2 is a highly compressed format. The main issue would be editing mpeg2 footage without serious issues.

 

[DanHinch]

I sell these where I work... I have heard complaints of bad low light problems inside around the house...much less around a storm. Though a very neat concept I would stay away from them till they get better.

Dan

 

[David Drummond]

I sell these where I work... I have heard complaints of bad low light problems inside around the house...much less around a storm. Though a very neat concept I would stay away from them till they get better.

Dan

Oh, the technology is there, but it's on the very high end commercial/news type cameras. Our station is using some of these and they are sweet. They can get about 20 min of video on the little drive cards in HD and just pop them out and into the edit machine. That are very much on the pricey side though. Someday I suspect we will see something like that in the price range of something like what the Sony VX2100s are going for now. There is always something better on the horizon, but at some point, we have to reach the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Chris Carlson]

With a hard drive, I'd get the feeling you'd have to be much be careful then an average camera. Put it down too hard and you might lose all the video.