Camcorders

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Camcorders

Postby The Non-Professional » Wed May 19, 2004 5:57 pm

Can anyone suggest a good digital camcorder I can use to record and put on my computer for easy eidting, I tryed looking around but I have no idea what the hell im looking at. :|
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Postby The Non-Professional » Wed May 19, 2004 6:03 pm

and by the way this is just one of the camcorders im looking at, any good?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... stid=50892
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Postby The Non-Professional » Wed May 19, 2004 6:04 pm

I should have really previewed that link... :cry:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... pe=product
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Postby Herbert West » Wed May 19, 2004 6:31 pm

This is crap, if you want to record real video you need a DV-cam you can transfer the video by firewire to your pc for editing. There are lots of different brands and types it all depends on what you want to do with it and how much money you want to spend.
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Postby The Non-Professional » Wed May 19, 2004 6:58 pm

Its not so much how much I wanna spend but how muich I have to spend, but it would be nice not to go over 500. I simply need to ecord footage and edit it in premiere or something. and I have no idea what a firewie is or DV-cam, any guide for that stuff?
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Postby TaranT » Thu May 20, 2004 12:29 am

The Non-Professional wrote:I should have really previewed that link... :cry:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... pe=product

This camera has no line input function. Which means you won't be able to transfer from DVD/tape to its memory. Not all camcorders have the ability to record from an external video source, and those that do will refuse to record Macrovision-protected signals which is used on almost all DVDs.

Take a look at Canon ZR-series camcorders; they have line-in ports. But they won't record Macrovision source. Shop around for a good price and alternative models.

A cheaper option would be this device or something like it. Costs less than most camcorders, but of course you can't take pictures with it.
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Postby Herbert West » Thu May 20, 2004 5:18 am

The Non-Professional wrote:I simply need to ecord footage and edit it in premiere or something.


If you just want to use footage from a DVD then you don't need a cam, you can extract(rip) it from the DVD using pc-software, a guide to do this is here:
http://animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/
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Postby narcted » Thu May 20, 2004 2:18 pm

Consumer Reports did a very good review of digital camcorders in November 2003. I would suggest going to the local library and looking at this issue. It will answer most of your basic questions about what to buy.

I bought a Panasonic DV103 from Circuit City open box for $300 I'm very happy with it.
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Postby The Non-Professional » Thu May 20, 2004 5:30 pm

Herbert West wrote:
The Non-Professional wrote:I simply need to ecord footage and edit it in premiere or something.


If you just want to use footage from a DVD then you don't need a cam, you can extract(rip) it from the DVD using pc-software, a guide to do this is here:
http://animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/



Well I dont want to use footage from DVDs, I need to record live action and edit that, like football games, parades, award ceremonies and such like that.
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Postby Herbert West » Thu May 20, 2004 5:38 pm

If you want to use it in bright areas then you can buy a 300$-400$ dollar el cheapo dv-cam, i only know german sites but jvc, panasonic and sony have good cams in the lower price range.
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Postby The Non-Professional » Thu May 20, 2004 5:47 pm

Herbert West wrote:If you want to use it in bright areas then you can buy a 300$-400$ dollar el cheapo dv-cam, i only know german sites but jvc, panasonic and sony have good cams in the lower price range.


So has long has its a DVcam its good? and that means I need a firewire correct?
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Postby Herbert West » Thu May 20, 2004 6:15 pm

I think i have never seen a dv-cam without firewire out.
Yes, you need a firewire port on your pc, if you dont have one you can buy firewire cards.
The biggest problem with cheap dv-cams is that the video quality is really bad in dark areas, you can only make good shots in bright sunlight.
A good optical!!!(not digital) zoom is also nice to have 16x shouldn't be a problem in the lower price range.
dv-in allows you to store the edited video back on dv-tape, nice feature because dv-avi needs lots of gigs on the harddisc.
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Postby TaranT » Fri May 21, 2004 2:03 am

Steve's Digicams - Reviews of Camcorders

There's a link on that page to some information about Firewire (aka iLink aka IEEE-1394).
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Postby AMVfreak » Sun Jun 13, 2004 12:21 am

basically if you dont want to get over the budget of $500 you should consider the
Canon ZR series
theyre reasonable prices with simple controls
ZR series would be a value over performance miniDV camcorder that lets you edit footage

oh ya you can edit video by buying a cable to connect the PC's firewire to the camcrder's DV port
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