How much better is a HD camcorder vs a Standard camcorder

[johnharlin]

Panasonic sells some nice camcorders. The 78x optical HD camcorder is around $450 and their 78x optical Standard with flash drive only is $199 at my local store. What I am also thinking about is that editing HD video is a pain in the sense that it would take much longer to encode. I would save a lot of time encoding only standard videos. That's not even to mention less hard drive space. The price for the standard is a lot better too. I'm also wondering how stable the video would be at such high zoom.

Does it really make that much of a difference, HD vs Standard.

[2Bdecided]

All other things being equal*, between 3.75x better (HDV vs "PAL") and 6x better (AVCHD vs "NTSC").

But you'll still be watching the same content

* - all other things are rarely equal.

Cheers,
David.

[jagabo]

SD: 720x480 NTSC, or 720x576 PAL
HD: 1920x1080 or 1280x720, HDV 1440x1080 (16:9 DAR)

SD: usually lightly compressed, DV
HD: usually heavily compressed, h.264, MPEG 2

78x zoom will require a tripod.

[magillagorilla]

It sounds like your motivation is one of finance more than quality. Someone who has experienced the difference between between the two formats would not seriously ask this question.

Having said that, there are too many variables to determine "best" without talking specific camera models and specific goals. Is your goal 240p web video? Or are you shooting events to be played back on an HDTV?

The camera and the shooting technique really determins the quality of the image. A mobile phone can record HD video. But a phone's pinhole lens will not hold up to a SD camcorder with a good lens no matter how many pixels it's recorded in. So, that sort of answers your question. Pixel count is only a part of the equation.

[rumplestiltskin]

My son uses a Samsung (not the very latest; maybe eight months old). It records 1080p and 720p (as well as SD 480). Editing 1080p is sometimes an issue if your computer doesn't have the cajones for it. We've found that 720p video is quite sufficient for everything (everything he needs, anyway; YMMV). At this resolution there's plenty of storage space on the SDXC(?) cards and the battery seems to last longer, as well.

The Samsung cost about $250.

Just my 2 cents.

[yoda313]

If finances are a major concern I would consider getting the best quality standard def cam you can. Plus make sure it records in WIDESCREEN. Then at least you can have it match your hdtv - I'm assuming since you are asking about hd you have an hdtv.

Standard def in widescreen should look decent enough for home use. If you're looking to go for professional looking stuff you'll have to fork over lots more.

I don't know what they go for but the best old school camcorders were 3ccd. If you can find one of those in your price range that would probably be your best bet for standard def. Though I don't know if they make analog camcorders new anymore.

[2Bdecided]

Standard def in widescreen should look decent enough for home use. If you're looking to go for professional looking stuff you'll have to fork over lots more.

I totally disagree. Assuming you're watching in Full HD, with a screen size / viewing distance that lets you appreciate HD, then a Canon HV20 or something better will eat any SD camcorder for breakfast in decent light - even a broadcast quality one.

This is especially true in NTSC land.

I was trying to find a link with a nice comparison, but this was proven so long ago (2008) that I think it's gone now.

Cheers,
David.

[magillagorilla]

AVCHD HD at 1080 30p on my Canon HF100 is the best looking camcorder footage I have ever captured. It's leaps and bounds better than my Canon miniDV. Stable 1080 24p HD footage shot with my Nikon D7000 (non-camcorder) is yet again better looking than my HF100.

But if I were just shooting a webcast of my head yapping about something, 1080p would be overkill. For the same purpose miniDV would be a pain in the ass, with interlace footage and real time transfers. I'd use a 720p Flip video or something.

Like I said, if the OP is looking for "best", they need to provide more information, like goals and specific camcorder models.

My advise, wihout knowing all the factors, is to go HD. You can always downsample the footage. Going with SD would be like starting a new music collection on compact cassette. Does it work? Ya, but why on earth would you use a format that is a generation old?

[handyguy]

Digital cameras are great for video these days too.

[redwudz]

I have been amazed at the quality of AVCHD camcorders compared to SD DV ones. Mine has a hard drive for storage, so I can shoot hours of HD video without messing with SDHC cards or slow transferring tapes.

True, the video is harder to edit, but there are plenty of programs out there that can do it. And you do need a fast PC, but there are also a lot of them out there.

I would never go back to SD.

[nateo200]

HD > SD. I seriously can not go back to making/capturing or buying anything that isn't high defintion. It just looks...wrong. I shoot HD with a DSLR and it is always on 1920x1080p if I ever use 1280x720p (still considered high def.), its so I can use 60fps for slow motion stuff. In fact I'd really like to see some stuff come out over 1080p and start seeing some resonably price 2k and 3k video cameras (no RED's scarlet does not count since it is not out and you still need a large ass budget for just the camera!). I always choose to shoot in the highest quality realistically possible. You can always scale down but you can not scale up, at least not without sacrificing some quality here and there and that's a whole other area! Now if you have a canon 5D MkII and you've got this big video rig set up to shoot 1080 @ 24p and you forget your SD cards at home except for one 2GB then there's the "realistically" aspect added haha but then again you can always dump data to a computer. I'm getting side tracked so overall just go with the HD, its a good choice. I did not pay much attention to the models your looking at since I'm rushing and I'm usually more into DSLR video but always look at other specs than just resolution alone.

[edDV]

Remember the OP has a 1.6 GHz Pentium 4. That is inadequate for anything HD.

He needs to give us additional information about goals and budget.

[2Bdecided]

Remember the OP has a 1.6 GHz Pentium 4. That is inadequate for anything HD.

It must be pretty painful to use on some websites too!

Not joking - I have a P4 2GHz machine and heavily flash-laden websites aren't nice on it.


A 1.6GHz P4 won't even play HDV IME (maybe someone knows a way).

Cheers,
David.

[magillagorilla]

My old P4 2.4Ghz could hardly handel 720x640 video editing. The OP is not responding to this thread anyway, they must have lost interest. With a computer that dated, I'd go with a point and shoot camera that will shoot a range of 720p and below. Unless, it's footage I cared about.

My cameras are usually a generation newer than my computers. I am always able to edit footage 4-5 years later when I upgrade my computers. But I don't need anything "hot off the press" either. I got my HD camera while I still had my P4 machine. I just saved the files knowing I was capturing video to the best of my budget now and would be able to edit them on a future computer. It paid off because now I can edit HD and I'm glad I have all that high quality footage from the past 3-4 years.

It all breaks down to the goal of the video.

[RogerTango]

HD video quality is far superior to SD video as recorded from camcorders.

Ive been doing video for almost 2 decades, started with VHS-C, went to Digital-8 (that was a MAJOR leap in quality!), and finally to AVCHD, which is simply mind boggling (to me anyway...) how clear the image is.

My first HD camcorder was a Canon HF10, the quality is AMAZING!

JMHO,
Andrew