HDD Camcorders

[frafor]

Recently we have been seeing how new camcorders are coming to the market that offer the fantastic advantage of recording on hard disk drives.

Sony has come up with SDR-100, with a 60GB HDD and JVC earlier came up with Everio 505 with a 30GB HDD.

For those of us used to the tape, we know that 1 full hour of highest quality signal will take up about 13 GB. Maybe 15 GB in the 16:9 mode. However, these new HDD camcorders do not offer the option of NOT USING MPEG-2 recording (a compressed format that puts 1 hour in 4.2 GB at 9 mbs high quality setting).

Real edition of MPEG-2 streams is difficult. It is slow. Anybody who has done "serious" editing (Adobe Premiere-Pro) knows that DV-AVI is the way to go for fast, accurate editions. Why do these fine HDD new camcordes not offer the DV-AVI mode? I mean, it is up to the owner to use it. Probably only the MPEG2 format will be used, but for "serious" editors, some material will be captured in DV-AVI.

Please, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, listen up!

Just an idea.

[techfreak]

First, someone should move this to the photography forum.

What format do these HDD camcorder record in then if not MPEG-2?

My guess is that these companies do not want to make their Mini-DV systems obsolete, yet they want to appeal to the earlier adopters who are willing to pay more for new technology (albiet not the best picture quality in this case).

[dang]

its probably because of two things:
1) raw uncompressed video is about 1 to 1.5 GB per minute.
2) users will upgrade to a higher quality camera if they want to do serious video recording.

These HDD cameras are more for enthusiasts that just want to point and shoot. I'd recommended looking at their $2000+ range of cameras.

[frafor]

My suggestion is in the direction of providing one more "recording mode": DV-AVI mode. These HDD camcorders offer only MPEG2 modes (4 or 5 of them). As they go down in quality, they also go down in the amount of gigabytes used per minute.

As I said, a HARD DISK DRIVE of 30 GB would allow for a very crisp recording to be made for at least 2 hours. The movie maker would go to their PC and copy the DV-AVI MATERIAL.

Less material with more quality. The same camera certainly has the capacity to do both. It is just a matter of adding the choice.

MPEG2 is a compressed format, and since the compression must be done in real time, only CBR (constant bit rate) must be used. That is, if the scene requires more than the CBR provided, the quality will not look good, and yet, if the scene DOES NOT require as much bit rate, the extra bit rate will be a waste of space.

If the edition and later compression is done from DV-AVI, then the final DVD can be compressed in VBR (variable bit rate), providing a lot of bit rate for difficult passages and less bit rate for less difficult ones.

But the manufacturers already know the above. If it is not a technical problem to add the choice, I suggest they do it.

I forgot to mention the fact that more than once I have lived the frustration of loosing valuable material due to original tape damage, event that was completeley out of my control (and in the control of the camera as it moved the tape back and forth). This would be completely avoided in HDD recordings.