Recommended camcorders

On Dec 6, 2006, at 5:38 AM, Narrell Brown wrote:

> Can anyone advise what digital camcorders are compatible with Macs?

Any and all Mini-DV and HDV camcorders work with the Mac. So that's
the ones which use MiniDV or HDV tapes. There's tons.

Where you'll run into compatibility issues is with some of the hard
drive or DVD-based camcorders. Many of these record in MPEG-2 format
and thus require some conversion before you can bring them into
iMovie. So avoid Micro-DV, DVD and VHS. None of them will work out of
the box with iMovie.

The PC-only part is the included software. You have iMovie, so you
don't need that.

As for which camera... Just depends on what you want. There's a
million and six things to consider beyond price, including the size
of the CCD (increases resolution and clarity of picture and works
better in low light), the number of CCDs (the best cameras use a
separate CCD for red, green and blue, whereas cheaper ones only have
one CCD which is used for all colors), manual controls (or not),
optical vs. digital image stabilization, accessory jacks, other
features, etc...

When shopping for my camcorder, I found Camcorder Info to be of great
help, as well as their sister site, Easy Camcorders.

<http://www.camcorderinfo.com/>
<http://www.easycamcorders.com/>

I bought a Panasonic PV-GS300 which is a mid-priced camcorder, and
about the cheapest 3-chip (3 CCDs) model you can get. It has pretty
much full manual control, which I like, and makes great movies. The
biggest downside on it is that it doesn't have a hot shoe for a
microphone or light, so any accessories I use need to have batteries
or be plugged in. For my purposes, that's okay, but it just depends
on what you're doing.

I'd check those sites, above, especially the buyers guide on
easycamcorders.com. That's a great place to educate yourself.

--Nik

At 2:45 PM -0800 2006/12/06, Nik wrote:
>On Dec 6, 2006, at 5:38 AM, Narrell Brown wrote:
>>Can anyone advise what digital camcorders are compatible with Macs?
>
>Any and all Mini-DV and HDV camcorders work with the Mac. So that's
>the ones which use MiniDV or HDV tapes. There's tons.

Not sure about 'all'. A friend had trouble with a Samsung
several years ago. Apple doesn't seem to post iMovie camera
compatibility info since v6, so perhaps it really is compatible with
everything. Note that there are apparently issues with Canon cameras.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61603

Also be aware that the current versions of iMovie and iDVD
are heavily biased towards HD video. All their current templates use
HD aspect ratio, although they also provide the old templates.


--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
                             <http://www.extrapepperoni.com/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

Narrell Brown wrote:
> Can anyone advise what digital camcorders are compatible with Macs?
>
> Every time I see a cheap (or discounted) camera advertised it has "all
> software included" then "System requirements: PC".
>
>
> [My strong suspicion, though I don't have one, is that nearly all
> camcorders will be compatible with the Mac via iMovie, so let's not get
> bogged down in the compatibility question and instead focus on the more
> general question of which ones are most recommended. -Adam]

If it is digital and has a FireWire/iLink/IEEE1394 whatever it's about
99.999% compatible.

I almost went out on black Friday to get a "deal" then decided I needed
SOME sleep that night. So I started digging and found the site mentioned
by the other fellow. It was the only camcorder site I found that gave
"real" reviews that tried to use objective ratings. (CNET, for example,
is all over the map on this issue as each reviewer is allowed to bring
all their bias as to what's important to their reviews.) This site also
rates the camcorders as to how it fits the needs of various types of
buyers. (I'm mostly a budget guy.) And a real help is they give short
summary comparisons to other camcorders in the same price and feature
range. Following these link to other reviews can really help you figure
out a very confusing market.

Anyway I picked up a Canon ZR500 at Sears for $200. And I love it. A big
use for us is high school marching band, lacrosse, and other outdoor
high school activities. The 25X zoom is great. I've taken it to two
small Christmas parades, one at night. In the night parade I did
everything wrong in terms of being too close, street lights putting me
in shadows, background lights too close, etc... and still got film
that's not bad for my very first use. The other parade went better and I
was able to get head shots from about 100' away without a tripod.

Anyway, visit this web site and read for a while and you should find
something that works for you.

> I don't want to spend a fortune - I have spent enough on handycams over
> the years,
>
> maybe I should just use to learn how to use my phone to take videos.

And just like with digital cameras, plan to spend more for needed
things. A decent bag, an extra battery or few, a car charger, a tripod /
monopod, something, etc...

As to why I didn't buy a better unit. As most of my use will be outdoors
in what could be not the best weather and locations, my marriage can
deal with a $200 brick much better than with a $1000 brick.

>On Dec 6, 2006, at 5:38 AM, Narrell Brown wrote:
>Any and all Mini-DV and HDV camcorders work with the Mac. So that's
>the ones which use MiniDV or HDV tapes. There's tons.
>
>Where you'll run into compatibility issues is with some of the hard
>drive or DVD-based camcorders. Many of these record in MPEG-2 format
>and thus require some conversion before you can bring them into
>iMovie. So avoid Micro-DV, DVD and VHS. None of them will work out of
>the box with iMovie.

This advice also applies to the camcorders that record directly to an
internal hard drive instead of a MiniDV tape, such as the Sony
DCR-SR100. At the beginning of the year I posted something about that
model on my iMovie VQS blog, and it's turned into an informative
discussion thread:

<http://jeffcarlson.typepad.com/imovievqs/2006/01/sony_dcrsr100_h.html>

It seems that you can get video off of it and into iMovie, but it's not easy.

____________________________________________________________
Jeff Carlson ....................... http://jeffcarlson.com/
Never Enough Coffee Creations.......... http://necoffee.com/
Managing Editor, TidBITS........... http://www.tidbits.com/
NEW! iMovie HD 6/iDVD 6 VQS.. http://necoffee.com/imovievqs/

On Dec 12, 2006, at 1:57 PM, Chris Pepper wrote:

> Not sure about 'all'. A friend had trouble with a Samsung
> several years ago. Apple doesn't seem to post iMovie camera
> compatibility info since v6, so perhaps it really is compatible with
> everything. Note that there are apparently issues with Canon cameras.
>
> http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61603
>
> Also be aware that the current versions of iMovie and iDVD
> are heavily biased towards HD video. All their current templates use
> HD aspect ratio, although they also provide the old templates.

I've used iMovie/iDVD at least 6-10 hours per week for several years
now. I get tapes from all kinds of cameras and all kinds of cameras
to use. I'm producing an hour-long video weekly, plus additional
short pieces. I use Canon cameras myself for the color consistency,
but sometimes Sony for certain types of projects. I've never had a
problem with ANY mini-DV camera. Other formats will be a problem and
I strongly recommend NOT getting anything but TAPE if you are going
to be editing. Keep in mind, that this is going to be changing
dramatically over the next few years, however. New high-speed/high-
capacity flash and post-flash memory developments will allow HD
recording and playback at very high bandwidth speeds. The future will
be tapeless, and probably NOT hard drive based. There are cameras
coming out in 2007 that will be HD and flash based, but expect to pay
$1500+ for something that may be evolving rapidly. MiniDV has been
around awhile and you can get dedicated minidv vtr systems for the
price of a camera these days, so you'll save wear and tear on your
cameras plus have some added features.

My recommendations would be based on your budget and subject matter.
For travel videos, the widescreen cameras are a great thing and I'd
recommend moving into something with true 16:9 format recording. If
you are primarily recording people, I think widescreen can be a
distraction because it's tougher to frame the subject so that the
added space doesn't distract from the subject.

I kind of disagree with Chris on the 'bias towards HD video'. Maybe
he means 'wide screen' since that's not really the same thing. Yes
the templates are designed for 16:9, but the older ones are not 16:9
and that's really a minor thing. I like being able to choose between
widescreen for incorporating a lot of photos shot at 35mm along with
video cropped to 16:9 if it's not filmed that way. But it depends on
the subject. iMovie and iDVD can handle HD, but I don't think they
are particularly biased towards that. They are really best suited for
consumer grade cameras that shoot 4:3 or 16:9 but aren't necessarily
shooting 720i or 1080i HD. You really need a beefy system for
capturing that kind of footage anyway, and it's not the software that
will be stressed; it'll be the hardware.

Sony's have the best 'service record' as they are serviceable all
over the place. I like Canon's color the best, especially for people.
I don't think you'll be disappointed with either of those brands, but
I'd stay away from the disc-based recorders. Go for minidv tape, for
now.

Jeffrey

David Ross wrote:
> I almost went out on black Friday to get a "deal" then decided I needed
> SOME sleep that night. So I started digging and found the site mentioned
> by the other fellow.

This might help:
<http://www.camcorderinfo.com/>

I just got a Canon ZR-600 a few days ago. It works perfectly with iMovie.

Those cameras that save as MPEG-4 -- do they work with the iLife suite?

On 19-Dec-2006, at 05:25, sscarbrough wrote:
> Those cameras that save as MPEG-4 -- do they work with the iLife
> suite?

iMovie wants DV input, and as far as I know (or can tell) really can
only handle DV.

So, I think with MPEG-4 you would have to copy to the computer,
convert to DV in Quicktime Pro, and then throw the resulting file at
iMovie.

On 20 Dec 2006, at 15:04, Google Kreme wrote:
> iMovie wants DV input, and as far as I know (or can tell) really can
> only handle DV.

And HDV of course.

iMovie will handle pretty much anything that Quicktime does. I've imported many MPEG-4 movies into iMovie. It does take a while though, at least for me on my non-Intel Mac mini. However I don't know if it will import directly from the camera. It could be that you would have to copy it to the computer first.

Actually iMovie HD (iLife '06 version) has the ability to set up the
project as an MP4. I wonder if it's getting transcoded somehow because
it takes very long to import a file. Based on how the compression is
done in MP4, you have the same type of editing issues with MP3s. The
compression looks backwards and forwards for comparison frames. When
you cut a section out, you may be cutting out a keyframe. So editing
is more difficult to implement and in iMovie, I think that translates
to slow imports because it is converting it to a intermediate form.

Jonathan

--On December 22, 2006 4:02:05 PM -0800 Jonathan Ploudre <jploudregmail.com> wrote:

Actually iMovie HD (iLife '06 version) has the ability to set up the project as an MP4. I wonder if it's getting transcoded somehow because it takes very long to import a file. Based on how the compression is done in MP4, you have the same type of editing issues with MP3s. The compression looks backwards and forwards for comparison frames. When you cut a section out, you may be cutting out a keyframe. So editing is more difficult to implement and in iMovie, I think that translates to slow imports because it is converting it to a intermediate form.

In messing around with moving content from my TiVo (stored in MPEG-2) to DVD, plus an MP4 version to be stored on a media server in anticipation of Apple's iTV product, I've found going through iMovie to be very slow. If you go through iMovie to iDVD in MP4 in addition to the problems you mention, transcoding for DVD takes (literally) DAYS to create a 4 GB DVD (this is on a PPC G4 Mac mini with a GB of memory). The MP4 transcoding to MPEG-2 by iDVD is horribly slow.

Having iMovie transcode MP4 to DV is also very slow, but creating the DVD is much faster. Editing is also better because each frame is in full so you don't have the keyframe issues.

I also found that going from a single DV file edited with QuickTime Pro instead of iMovie actually allowed me to put more content on a DVD with iDVD. I'm not really sure why this is.

Oh and even if you buy the MPEG-2 add-on for QuickTime it doesn't work with MPEG-2's from a TiVo Series 2, at least mine didn't.

The fastest workflow I found was to use ffmpeg (via the VisualHub front end) to convert MPEG-2 to DV. Then edit the DV with QucikTime Pro. Then I use iDVD to make DVD's with menus, and Visual Hub to make MP4's. Although this seems to have a lot more conversions, the times involved were actually less than trying to go MPEG-2 to MP4 and editing the MP4 with quciktime pro, then going to iDVD.

Oh, and I wrote a little app that helps me move through QuickTime movies in even increments (2, 5, 10, 30 seconds or minutes at a time. Plus a slider for custom jumps.) If anyone is interested, I've released the app and source code under the GPL. <http://www.superfantasmoworld.com/modules/wfdownloads/singlefile.php?cid=4&lid=8>

VisualHub is available here: <http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/>

Kevin

I just recently purchased a macbook and am hoping to find a more seemless transition from camcorder to editing software to dvd. After too many sleepless nights attempting an easy way with my miniDVD camcorder-movie editing software-external dvd burner I freaked out and bought a mac. I'm hoping a camera exists which will allow for easy transfer of audio/video to imovie and then finally to idvd. Does this sound possible and if so any camera suggestions? Seems hard drive models and minidvd only record in mpeg2 which requires conversion (DONT WANT THIS). Do any hard drive models or new HD models record in DV?

As was previously mentioned on this list, any MiniDV camcorder will record
to DV and go straight into iMovie without trouble. These are tape-based
camcorders, but they're inexpensive (relatively speaking) and easy to use.

--
Nik :: gerberiNik.net
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