Need to Shoot a couple short movies(camera and capture Q's)

[Dentist]

Looking for a MiniDV camera and a capture solution so I can shoot some short like 5 minute movies and edit them on my PC with something like Premiere. Probably don't want to spend more than $950 with tax on a camera. Also the capture solution can't be too expensive either. And what kind of storage space would be best for editing etc. Your help is greatly appreciated

[erayboul]

You will need to double-check the camera that you are planning to purchase and make sure that it has a Firewire output (it may also be called i.link or IEEE 1394). If so, then make sure that your computer has the same interface. You may need to purchase an inexpensive Firewire card. My Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS includes a Firewire port on the card. If you have Firewire on both your camera and the computer, you are ready to start shooting. After you shoot the movie, capturing simply amounts to copying from the camera to the hard drive. However, this process is typically called capturing and a program such as Premiere Pro has the capability to do that. As far as storage space, the DV25 format that is MiniDV occupies approximately 13 GB per hour. You will want a hard drive that can be formatted as NTFS instead of FAT32 otherwise you will run up against a 4 GB limit per file, which amounts to about 18 minutes of straight capturing. Most 7200 rpm hard drives these days should be able to keep up with the video during the capture process. It is preferable to have a separate drive from your system drive for capturing, although I never have any dropped frames and I'm only using one hard drive. As far as camcorder suggestions, I don't really have any. The Sony VX2000 is about double your budget, but I can recommend the site www.camcorderinfo.com. Keep in mind that as far as storage space goes you need to allow some for temporary files and DVD-related files if you are making a DVD.

[dipstick]

For that money you can find plenty of cameras that will fill the bill. You can even use a Digital-8 ($400 or less) for that. As far as the capture part, all you need is a 1394 Firewire card ($25 or less) and Firewire ($20) to import the dv-avi from the camera and tape to the HDD. For storage I would use 100+ GIG HDD (around $50 on sale) to store your files.

[Dentist]

Thanks guys, great info, I am planning on revamping my computer to a 3200 or 3500 A64 and a new mobo which will certainly have firewire and porbably SATA2 drives. I am still thinking about the sizes and thought maybe 2 X 160G or even a 200 and a 160. As long as I have a firewire input on my computer I don't need a "capture card" or an external unit to transport from MiniDV?

[julitomg]

You are right..if your motherboard has it, you don´t need much else. I use premiere 6.5 and am perfectly happy with it. I first used a firewire ADS Pyro card, then it got damaged(don´t ask)and since I needed a fast and cheap replacement I purchased a no-name generic OHCI card(IEEE1394) only to get an urgent job completed, don´t laugh; I got it for about 20 dollars(incl. FWcable)...but it turned out that it captured perfectly, without droped frames or anything for any clip´s duration. I was amazed and that card never gave any problems and used it for months...then I finally changed it when I bought a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe (to get analog in/out as well)
As for the camera...well, you don´t need such a "Pro" camera, since there are good alternatives within your budget limits. One thing to consider for example is that you can buy a miniDV camera with 3 CCD´s in that range, just try to get one with manual adjustments for white balance, exposure, etc...

[Dentist]

The only 3CCD camera I can seem to find at about the right price is the Panasonic PV-GS65.

Canadian dollars

[thecoalman]

I am still thinking about the sizes and thought maybe 2 X 160G or even a 200 and a 160.

More is always better but not necessary. 2 160GB drives is more than sufficient unless your like me and start 5 projects and never finish them. If you only doing short clips 1 160GB drive is good enough. You may want to consider getting one super fast drive for your OS drive and one huge drive for storage. I know that's the root I'm taking next computer purchase. You need about 13-14 gigs per hour of DV-AVI video. Plus you need some temp space for temporary files.

As long as I have a firewire input on my computer I don't need a "capture card" or an external unit to transport from MiniDV?

Correct, basically you plug it in and hit record. Although refferred to capturing a lot, what your really doing is transferring the file from cam to HDD. Similar to copying a file from one folder to another, the only difference being your computer has to be able to write the data to disc fast enough which practically any modern comp is capable of.