Camera Editing and transfer questions

[PowerFalcon]

For those of you that work with HD (1080) or higher, I have a few questions for you.

• What camera do you use ?
• Do you work with near, or uncompressed video ? If so how do you feed it from the camera to the computer and maintain no compression during the transfer ?

[Cornucopia]

The vast majority of consumer/prosumer HD cams record in HDV (MPEG2 @25Mbps), or AVCHD (AVC/h264 @12-64Mbps) or AVC-in-MOV/MP4 (AVC/h264 @8-64). Pro cams give you other, less compressed options (HDCam/DCT, DVCPro, AVC-Intra/Ultra, XAVC, etc.) as well as the top-of-the-line cams that can shoot losslessly compressed or uncompressed or raw (or both LLC+RAW, such as Red).
What a LOT of people, from consumers on up, do to bypass that compression loss is to feed uncompressed/unadulterated/unadorned ("Clean") HDMI out to an HDMI recorder, such as the Atomos or BlackmagicDesigns or ConvergentDesign lines. They record with much less compression (ProRes, DNxHD/HR, CinemaDNG/RAW).

To retain the quality of whatever level your captured recording has been set, most power users would either use Smart-Rendering editors (where there is little to no re-compression), or they would up-convert to an Uncompressed/Lossless/Near-Lossless intermediate format for all the editing/FX/titling/compositing.
Then they would save a master IN THAT FORMAT.
Then they would make converted copies for whatever final distribution/playback format(s) they need.

With this kind of workflow, you are looking at 2 1/2 - 3 generations of loss, which is usually quite acceptable (with high enough bitrate).

Me, I use either my own equipment: Nikon D3200 DSLR, Canon Vixia HV30, Fuji W3, or GoPro
Or I rent (depends on the project)
Or I use the format of the client I'm contracting with...

Scott

[PowerFalcon]

For a consumer or Pro Consumer, I take it any camera will suffice as long as you HDMI the video into a HDMI recorder so you work with near uncompressed video as you mentioned ProRec etc, am I correct in this understanding ?

If I am correct, any camera you can recommend for under $500 with maybe an additional lens that would suffice, as to not go too extravagant ?

[poisondeathray]

For a consumer or Pro Consumer, I take it any camera will suffice as long as you HDMI the video into a HDMI recorder so you work with near uncompressed video as you mentioned ProRec etc, am I correct in this understanding ?

Not necessarily; Beware that not all consumer cameras have a clean HDMI out (e.g many of the early DSLR types were like this). Some have overlays or cadence problems or certain pulldown patterns when you record certain framerates (some more expensive recorders can remove pulldown on the fly). Do proper research on your specific model

[PowerFalcon]

What are key points to look for in a camera so I can have clean HDMI out and into an HDMI recorder ?

[poisondeathray]

A better question is why are you doing this ?

If you want to spend $500 on a camera, to me it doesn't make sense to spend about the same on an external recorder ($300 on a low cost recorder + $100 on media like a HDD). You will get better image quality out of a $1000 camera with native compression

Yes, an external recorder will improve over native recording compression artifacts. But if you hook it up to a crappy camera it's still going to produce crappy image quality. If the sensor or processing is sub par, it doesn't matter what you record it with. Ever hear of the saying "weakest link in the chain" ? In todays' consumer cameras <$2000, the compression usually isn't the weakest link for most scenarios.

Nobody is going to be able to tell you if it works on that camera, unless you see a review where someone hooked up an external recorder. The chance of that is very low if you're looking at sub $500 cameras. And if you do find one, chances are it won't be a detailed review and missing important information like HDMI signal testing various recording modes to see if the recording is clean or has pulldown

[PowerFalcon]

A better question is why are you doing this ?

If you want to spend $500 on a camera, to me it doesn't make sense to spend about the same on an external recorder ($300 on a low cost recorder + $100 on media like a HDD). You will get better image quality out of a $1000 camera with native compression

Yes, an external recorder will improve over native recording compression artifacts. But if you hook it up to a crappy camera it's still going to produce crappy image quality. If the sensor or processing is sub par, it doesn't matter what you record it with. Ever hear of the saying "weakest link in the chain" ? In todays' consumer cameras <$2000, the compression usually isn't the weakest link for most scenarios.

Nobody is going to be able to tell you if it works on that camera, unless you see a review where someone hooked up an external recorder. The chance of that is very low if you're looking at sub $500 cameras. And if you do find one, chances are it won't be a detailed review and missing important information like HDMI signal testing various recording modes to see if the recording is clean or has pulldown

What do you have or use ?