Thread: Video Camcorders, whats new

I bought a new one late last year after my faithful Sony finally decided to give up. (only 6 years but they get a hard life with me )

I too looked around and spoke to a few of the "experts". The hard part is getting an experienced technical person with no bias but there are some out there.

I to rejected the hard drive format for similar reasons and because I did not like most of the cameras that use them at the moment. I still like the quality of DV tape so wanted to go with that.
The 2 specs I really wanted was 1. A 3 chip camera
2. widescreen format

Most of the new cameras use widescreen format now but 3 chip narrows the field. Since TV stations and the majority of professionals now use 3 chip technology I really thought this was the way to go. It is not cheap but even now I cant believe the quality of the color.

I don't have any problems with Panasonic and have only had good dealings with them before so I ended up with a Panasonic GS500. I went with the Panasonic over the sony only because of the lens. Just a personal thing but I think the quality of the Leica lens is better than the Carl Zeiss.

The only problem I found was when I downloaded my first lot of video. There must be a lot more data to process with the 3ccd camers cause my motherboard would not handle it. I had to buy a new 3.0Ghz motherboard before everything would work ok.

Funny that you don't deal with Panasonic, had 2 of there Vidcams and never had any dramas. My first one I dropped onto the concrete and it still worked. The focus was a bit slower than it was before, but I used manual most of the time anyway. But luckily I haven't had to deal with there repairs dept as you have.

I ended up buying a Panasonic 3CCD job, bloody great camera. Good quality and the price was right. I initially was going to buy the cheaper 3CCD one, but I preferd the next one up in the range (another $500), more user-friendly and a bit bigger (I'm not partial to the real small ones). If I had a bigger Budget, would of bought the Cannon 3CCD model (about $4.5K ) mainly because it's a decent size. I have fat fingers and those bloody buttons on some are far too small, but the Panasonic GS250 that I bought was better than most.

I agree that the DV tape format is still much better. I looked into the DVD ones, a bit too finiky and personanlly I think they look cheap and nasty. The hard-disk ones, I don''t like the idea if that hard drive within the camera plays up that you have no backup. Didn't look into them, they had just been released when I bought mine.

Regards,

Trav

Hi aquarangie, I bought a semi pro Panasonic ( just before the first of the 3CCDs came on the market ).

This camcorder was $4,700 and with the extra batteries, ended up a little over $5k.

I only took a little over 30 hours of video with this camera over a three year period including 5 hours of rail video I took in the first 12 months after I moved to QLD.

I needed a second camera to do what I was planning to do up here in QLD, so I forked out another $4,500 for a Panasonic, a 3CCD this time. Although both the Canon and the Sony did more, both were an extra $1,000 and I couldn’t see the value for extras that I probably wouldn’t have used. That was a BIG mistake. I have now found that both the Panasonics a susceptible to Microwave interference in their audio.

This wouldn’t probably be a major problem except I want to video rail operations and most of the main lines now have microwave communications paralleling them. It only occurs if a few places but the two Sony’s are unaffected.

Enough of that, my main gripe is with Panasonic’s backup service.

After just over 30 hours use and by then, out of warranty, and only 3 weeks after buying my second Panasonic, my first Panasonic started have software failure indications and would shut down for no apparent reason.

Because the camcorder was a semi pro camera, Panasonic told there was only one company in QLD that could “ supposedly “ fix it.

11 months, three returns and $800 later I was left with a camera that some times works, which obviously, is useless.

I rang Panasonic Australia on numerous occasions to see, if nothing else, could they get this creep company to do something about repairing it or returning it.

Panasonic’s answer “ If I don’t like the service, they would give me back SOME of my money and I could go elsewhere “. So I just had to wait until they were ready.

In the interim, I still needed a second camera so I bought a Sony Digital 8. and the first thing I noticed was, and OK the Panasonic 3CCD has good colour separation but the D8 has a much clearer picture and a 20x optical zoom.

One other difference, both Panasonics suffer from pixilation if handled a bit roughly and I don’t mean dropping them or anything that harsh. Whereas the Sony’s have never caused pixilation and I really give the new Sony a hard time, far more than I ever gave either Panasonic.

The D8 cost just $1,250 and the new Sony was $1,400 and it has excellent picture quality and one of the main reason I bought it was that all the control settings are done through the Touch screen which is easy to see and quick to use especially as you can set up the controls so that the ones you use the most are on the first page, which makes for very quick changes when needed.

Anyway, thats my bitch.

Hi folks, for those of you who are using MiniDV Camcorders, The Good Guys have MiniDV tape at a good price at the moment.

A pack of three Sony MiniDV tapes are going for $13-50.

Thats only $4-50 a tape and that the cheapest I have seen so far.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi folks, for those of you who are using MiniDV Camcorders, The Good Guys have MiniDV tape at a good price at the moment.

A pack of three Sony MiniDV tapes are going for $13-50.

Thats only $4-50 a tape and that the cheapest I have seen so far.

Cheers.

Thanks Tim as I will be getting my DVD cam back from the warranty shop tomorrow and will be keen to record a lot of footage to make up for lost time. (Only have about 1/2Hour of 4x4 footage that I have ever recorded)

Don’t be like me LoadedDisco, I’ve got over 60 hours of rail video and 8 to 10 hours of 4x4 video and with the exception of 2 rail videos I made and sold, a few ago, I haven’t found the time to do anything with it all.

Cheers

I'm a novice on the hardware side but would be interested to hear what software you use for video editing? I've got access to a lot of 4x4 footage that I would like to compile in a watchable 10 min DVD. I hate sitting through unedited home videos .. I reckon every 2 hours of raw footage is good for about 5 minutes on DVD! Thoughts ?

Hi Greylandy, my original intention was to make large numbers of hopefully, good quality rail videos and sell them. So to that end I spent over $19,000 on a high end Apple computer and Apple professional video editing software.

This was without question, the biggest waste of money and time you could imagine.

Don’t get me wrong, I had no intention of trying to get my money back from the sales, it was supposed to be a hobby and ended up being a nightmare.

If you want to do some editing, have a chat to Incisor. He’s got some good clews on what’s out there and most of it is free.

Cheers.