How do I decide when nobody seems to be able to use their camcorder?

[Steve F.]

All I want to do is shoot the video, be able to play it on a standard dvd player and upload to the web (be it youtube, myspace, or any other web site). I've read and read and read, and all I seem to see is people who have a camcorder and can't get any output from it. I don't want to simply hook up the camera to the tv. I don't want to become a movie making geek (God bless all you geeks, without whom there would be no one to answer my question), or have to take a college course to learn how to get results. HD doesn't matter to me, but generally good quality video is, as is a mic input. Beyond that, I haven't a clue. How am I supposed to determine which camera, or type of camera, to buy? Even the low end models are a lot of money if I can't get the results I'm wanting without going back to college.

Thanks for your indulgence.

[filmboss80]

Buy a set-top, standalone DVD recorder that you can feed your camcorder into and make discs from. (The process is similar to feeding camcorder footage into a VHS VCR. Did you ever do that?)

For YouTube, etc: Once you make the DVD disc, load it into your computer and copy the VIDEO_TS folder to your hard drive. Inside the VIDEO_TS folder will be some VOB files. Open them with a free tool like Mpg2Cut2 (in the Tools section of this site) and trim out the clip or clips from the vob files that you want to put on YouTube or MySpace. The edited clips will end up as short mpg files. Use another one-button freeware application called WinFF to open the mpg files and convert them to flv files. Upload the flv files to YouTube or MySpace.

[redwudz]

Most of the people that ask questions in forums are having problems. The vast majority of camcorder users don't have problems and so you don't see them asking questions.

It's not that complicated. If you get a DV camcorder, a FireWire card and cable, you are set up on the hardware end. You can do the DV transfers to your hard drive with WinDV. Simple to use and it's freeware.

Once you get the DV to your hard drive, there are plenty of editors that can work with it. Windows Movie Maker is one, and VirtualDub is another with much more control.

Once edited and output again as DV, you encode or convert it to the format of your choice. If DVD, you use a MPEG encoder, then a authoring program to create the DVD structure. Then you burn it to DVD and watch it.

Or there are payware programs that will do editing, encoding, authoring and burning for creating a DVD. These may a bit easier to use for novices.

And welcome to our forums.

[zoobie]

How am I supposed to determine which camera, or type of camera, to buy? Even the low end models are a lot of money if I can't get the results I'm wanting without going back to college.

This seems to be a camera question
if so, www.camcorderinfo.com will get you started
then perhaps buy a used cam to save $

another problem is that owners refuse to read their manuals
more complex questions about the specific camera can usually be answered by downloading the manual which is usually found freely on the net...even before purchase

[Steve F.]

Thank you both for very informative answers, and for taking me seriously. I was a bit frustrated after a couple hours of reading about failures and fixes that made no sense.

There is still the remainder of my question. How do I know what type to buy. I realize that there are many variables preventing too specific an answer, but for instance, I am partial to the HDD concept. Some advisor elsewhere seemed to be advocating mini DV, which is what I was trying to avoid. I don't care today about HD, but will I in 6 months? What good is being able to make an HD dvd until everyone has a blue-ray player? Will that be in 6 months or 6 years? On top of all that, I want to spend around $500. Not exactly broadcast quality in that price range.

Thanks again. Your help is truly appreciated.

[Soopafresh]

HD video and HD DVD are not related. You can burn HD video to Blu Ray disks.

You need a fast computer (Core 2 Duo at least) for a hard drive based camcorder. The output is AVCHD format, and it puts a strain on the computer that's doing the editing.

If you really want a hard drive based Hi def camcorder, look at the Canon HG20, which you can get for $550. It's quite nice, but you'll have to look at upgrading your PC, if you all you have is a P4 with an 80GB hard drive.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/576009-REG/Canon_3085B001_VIXIA_HG20_AVCHD_Hard.html

Some footage shot with the HG20: http://www.vimeo.com/2264768

If you're not that serious about filming, then you can get pretty decent results with the Flip Mino HD camera, which sells for around $225. That's a small "pocket sized" camcorder. For that little money, you'll have enough left over for a tripod and some editing software. See footage:

http://www.vimeo.com/2489787

[redwudz]

One reason some of us still recommend DV camcorders is the DV format is one of the easiest to edit formats out there, much easier than even MPEG. H.264, AVCHD and other highly compressed formats are difficult to edit and are really made just for displaying, not editing.

DV camcorders have been around a while, granted. But the tapes are inexpensive, as are the camcorders, and will last a very long time in storage. So even if you decide to convert them to a different format a couple of years from now, the tape should still be good.

If you shoot perfect video that never needs editing, H.264 or AVCHD may be a better choice. You should also be aware that neither format plays on a set top player, AFAIK. So you will have to convert it to MPEG or Divx, depending on your player. If you only plan to playback on a computer, then no problem.

You would find quite a few DV and min-DV camcorders available. And for $500 you could get a camcorder, a large stack of tapes and still have enough left over for a FireWire card, cable and some decent software. JMO.

[zoobie]

I don't care today about HD, but will I in 6 months? What good is being able to make an HD dvd until everyone has a blue-ray player? Will that be in 6 months or 6 years?.

well, by shooting HDV, in 6 years, you won't be kicking yourself for having shot in SD
many folks are in the same boat...shooting for the future as it were...where HD is the standard

[tmw]

While DV has some benefits, it's also linear, meaning you have to play the tape to get the scene you want. Media files (e.g. HDD, flash memory video cameras) have the advantage of being able to edit any part of the file without having to replay the tape. Of course, once you move the DV files to your computer, they too have that non-linear attribute.

DV files are also quite large (25 mb/sec) compared to other SD (or even many HD) formats. For many, that larger file means more information, which is better quality. For comparison, DVD is like 8 mb/sec.

Basically, there are many trade-offs when selecting a video camera. If you want to put it on a DVD, why not select one that records to a DVD? Your points on HD are valid, but few people have Blu-Ray right now. How much computer work are you willing to do?

[ssscrudddy]

ok this thread is 2 months old but...

for camera choice it depends what you are doing, I would reccommend a tape camera DV or mini DV.
I strap my camera to my motorbike, & the dvd & hard drive cameras dont like the vibrations & turn themselves off straight away.

Also as the others have said they are easier to edit. Get the video into your pc using a firewire card.

Last year i bought a sony handycam digital 8 camera, took me ages to find one, the last one I had fell off the bike & was destoyed. None the new cameras I found at sensible prices had an av input... this was important to me as I want to plug a bullet camera into the camcorder & let the camcorder just record whilst being carried in a rucksack, I can then mount the bullet camera easily without worrying about it falling off.

I also tried some cameras that used memory card & found them all to be rubbish.

When you have got the hang of filming you will probably end up editing your videos.

To put your video on the internet it really depends where you are putting it. Youtube & myspace convert your videos when you upload them to their site, usually ending up in poor quality. But as you will have seen, good quality is achievable.

I have managed to get good quality on youtube but have since forgotten how to do it, but never managed good quality for myspace (which is why I am here tonight). The trick is to get the footage you upload to them as close to "their settings" as possible.

So you would do your editing & save as an avi, then convert your high quality finished video to whatever format the likes of youtube & myspace want.

If you have your own webspace I find wmv to be acceptable.

Using windows movie maker I import my edited high quality video, & publish it for playback on my computer. You cant specifically set frame rate bit rate & display size, but this changes as you drop the filesize. So I drop the filesize until the framerate changes to 13 fps. This I find gives me good enough results for what Im doing.