any expert on DVD Camcorder?

[sangleweb]

I am thinking about getting a DVD camcorder and I know that the max you can get out of the media is 30 (I don't want to use LP). This is fine but can I copy the movie to my PC, from here combine with others and do some minor editing such as adding text, title, and chapter. Could this be done with DVD Cam? I know you can do this with MiniDV. Thanks.

[wwjd]

Shooting in the SP mode(best quality) miniDV cameras record 60 minutes of DV avi video. I agree that it is best to use SP and NOT LP mode.

I do not know what DVD Cam is, is it a hard drive?

My opinion, given you want to do some minor editing using your pc, is to go with miniDV. It will give you the best quality and will be easier to edit. However, you will need to encode it to compliant mpeg2 for DVD authoring.

You can edit pretty much any type of DVD camcorder media whether it is DVD, Hard Drive, Digital 8 ect... The main difference between these options is what was used to compress the video. Hard Drive and DVD compress directly to mpeg2, which is more compressed than DV avi (miniDV). MPEG2 is in general a bit more challenging to edit and is certainly do able but you have to be happy with how the camera did the encode. Many cameras do not do a very good job encoding to mpeg2, but some do. Read reviews from cnet.com and camcorderinfo.com.

I did not look at your profile before starting this response so I do not know the specs for your computer. The net is that for video work, especially encoding, you need a fairly decent computer system. A P4 >2.0GHz with 512 DRAM, a seperate hard drive from the C: drive, USB2.0 and a firewire port, at least 60-80GB of free HDD space especially when working with miniDV (DV avi is around 12.5Gb per hour of video). You can do with a lesser system but it will be slow going.

This is a great site for finding and getting recommendations on software for doing your editing, authoring and burning. Look in the Tools section.

[terjeber]

I am thinking about getting a DVD camcorder

Why? I really wouldn't recommend it. DVD camcorders record to mini DVDs in MPEG-2. The problem with DVD quality MPEG-2 is that it is, for all intents and purposes not editable. Once you edit it you will experience significant quality losses.

In my opinion DVD camcorders should have a huge warning on them saying: Records non-editable junk.

Get a MiniDV camcorder, preferably one with three chips like the Panasonics. You will be glad you did. If you get a DVD camcorder you will regret it every time you want to edit your holiday footage.

[edDV]

I also recommend a MiniDV model.

The only advantage the DVD camcorder has is an instant DVD you can give away or some other odd use.