Looking to buy a semi-pro HDV type vid camera. Suggestions?

jshields said:
i too am in the hd camcorder market, and am hoping to keep it under $800. one of the questions i have is in regards to which format of "storage" to use, hard drive or tape/sd card? from what i understand the hard drive format can hurt the video quality bc of how much it compresses the video, but how easy is it to transfer video from a tape to my laptop? i use the dvd burner on my laptop to make dvd's for friends/family, and currently i have a jvc everio that is pretty easy with transferring over video from the camcorder via a firewire cable. i don't want to sacrifice the quality of the hd video, but am worried about having to buy expensive video editing software, etc if i go with a camera that uses tapes. in reality how much would i be losing in video quality going with a hard drive camcorder and what are some of the other benefits of going with a camcorder that uses tapes or even sd cards? thanks!
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Actually, tape/tapeless video quality isn't an issue. What media you choose should be based on the workflow you want and how comfortable you are with moving parts in a camera. Here's a basic rundown with some good suggestions for your price range:

Tape (HDV)
Moving Parts: A lot
Archiving: Way easy, you have the tape
XFerring to Computer: You'll need a firewire cable/input
Computer Compatibility: You'll need a decent amount of processing power, but probably the least compared to the rest.
File Sizes: Biggest of the bunch, HDV is really big
Video Quality: Good, but compressed just like any other. Highly Dependent on Camcorder as well.
Recommendation: Canon HV40

Flash Memory (SD Cards)
Moving Parts: None
Archiving: You'll need to either burn raw files onto DVDs/Blu Rays or Get Hard Drives to save your data. Most likely you'll need 25gb/hour or so.
XFerring to Computer: USB is just fine, you'll have one with a camera.
Computer Compatibility: If you are editing AVCHD (almost certain at this price range) you will need a pretty hefty bit of processing power. So don't get an AVCHD camera if you don't have a good computer to edit on.
File Sizes: 16gb is about 90 minutes or so...depending on bitrate and such.
Video Quality: Dependent on camera like the rest...but there are some stellar performing cams.
Recommendation: Canon HF20

Hard Disk Drives
Moving Parts: Not as much as Tape, but still some.
Archiving: You'll need to either burn raw files onto DVDs/Blu Rays or Get Hard Drives to save your data. Most likely you'll need 25gb/hour or so, it's the same codec as Flash Memory (SD Cards).
XFerring to Computer: USB is just fine, you'll have one with a camera.
Computer Compatibility: If you are editing AVCHD (almost certain at this price range) you will need a pretty hefty bit of processing power. So don't get an AVCHD camera if you don't have a good computer to edit on.
File Sizes: You can capture 15-16 hours on a 120gb HDD Camera.
Video Quality: Dependent on camera like the rest...but there are some stellar performing cams in this class. They don't generall perform 'worse' by any means.
Recommendation: Sony XR200, Pansonic HS250

Basically the general rule, if you go tapeless, you are going to need some processing power to edit AVCHD and if you go HDV, you are going to need processing power (but just not as much as AVCHD). There are better options just above your price range you should look into as well if you can splurge an extra $200 above your price range, but the cams within your price range will produce great footage in bright light and so-so footage in low light (depending on your standards of course). And one last word, a lot of people prefer one cam over another, but for the most part, top performers in consumer camcorders this year were very close in terms of video quality. So anyone claiming that one camera is definitely head and shoulders above the rest is just displaying a clear bias. The cams I listed are all pretty solid for under $800 cams and are spread across several different companies.

Good luck!
 
a few years ago I used to have a Sony handycam and connected via firewire to pc. This took time and cables.

now I love my ultraportable gear :

A laptop with SD card reader built in
A tiny netbook with SD card reader built in
video camera : Casio Exilim EX F1 , records on SD card , in VGA 30p, HD 720 30p, FHD 1080 60i , .mov quicktime mp4 h.264 files.

no more cables

edit / cut video clips in the camera, then transfer from SD card to PC, assemble ( join ) clips with free video joiner software, no need for expensive and hardware-consuming video editing software/hardware ( editing FHD needs a powerfull computer , fast CPU, lots of RAM. ). I don't shoot in FHD 1080, I shoot in HD 720 because the files are not as heavy as in FHD 1080 so they are faster to upload and to transfer and to join , and video is better in low-light as it is 30p , not 60i .


the main advantage of a real video camera, I see, is that it has image stabilization, while the Casio Exilim EX F1 has an optical stab that only works when shooting in photo mode, not in video mode.

so if I buy a video camera, I would choose one that records on SD cards, if possible in HD 720 24p, 25p or 30p, with excellent low-light and optical IS. Sony has a few good handycams but they record on memory stick.
Panasonic has a 3-CMOS cam with excellent low-light rating and SD card and optical IS.

my Canon EOS 450D also uses SD. hence the perfect match between cameras and netbook and laptop. No cables needed.

and SD cards can be found anywhere, cheap.

I am awaiting the next camera, to replace the 500D, that should have better video . Or maybe go for the 7D. But I have a feeling that Canon will soon offer a 550D ...
 
I also want to add on the codec issue jshields asked about earlier with a couple of additional thoughts. People who don't understand codecs get caught up in the mbps and assume that the higher, the better as it was with tape. Several people assume tapeless codecs are the same as tape, where the higher bitrate means there is automatically more video information stored, which is no longer the case.

What is quickly becoming more important is how cameras record video and how efficient they are with how they record. A lot of people are under the impression that tapeless camcorders simply don't record as good of quality as HDV because they don't have the same bitrate, which (of course) is false.

Think of it the same as computers, where clock speed isn't quite an indicator of how good a processor runs anymore. It's the same with video codecs nowadays as well. While HDV does record at ~25mbps, the Panasonic HDC-TM300 will outperform most any HDV camcorder from the past 5-7 years because it is more efficient with how it handles the picture data in it's 17mbps data stream. Typically, the AVCHD format is quite a bit more efficient with data than HDV, so the lower bitrates give you quite good results even in motion scenes. Really, it depends as much on how a camera processes an image and how efficient it is in storing it as much as the bitrate in which the image is recorded to.

So lesson being when shopping for a camcorder, don't always assume a higher bitrate means better video, it's just not the case anymore. Tapeless workflows give manufacturers more ability to streamline data and increase card capacity because of it. Of course, it goes without saying that knowing how to frame an image, how to properly expose it and how to use the camera you buy to it's strengths are more important as any technical mumbo-jumbo anyone can spew out :D
 
Anyone here have any knowledge about or experience with the Canon Vixia HF21? It is on sale this week at Best Buy for $799. My main use would be for chasing. Anything you can share regarding advice about this camera or experience with it would be appreciated.
 
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