Is JVC Hard-Disk-Camcorder a good or bad idea ?

This is JVC's HDD : http://www.jvc.com/presentations/everio_g/

Pioneer/Toshiba/JVC are the better video gear venders. They innovate and packs the best values for the buck.

But I am not so sure about this one, especailly they are USB only.

3) HDD is non removable so you need to dump the data to record more. Once you do there is no backup (no tape) until you make a backup so you need to take along a laptop with DVD writer and blank DVDR, etc.

4) MPeg2 is not as easy to edit and won't upscale to a HD as well as DV. Repeated decodes and encodes will also reduce quality vs. DV format.

The Sony Pro XDCAM (Blu-Ray DVD) is showing the future direction. It will record DV format or MPeg2 (SD to HD) to DVD and stores the data on the drive as files. It will allow DV stream transfers over Firewire in the classical 1x way, but will also allow faster transfer as a file over USB2 or Firewire. In the case of the XDCAM, the erasable Blu-Ray DVD provides the backup and the disc is removable.

The Panasonic approach is to use SD P2 flash cards to do the same thing (at SD or HD resolution). While expensive* at the moment, removable flash cards make an electronic only transfer medium that simply plugs into a computer PC card slot as a removable drive. Once again the flash card is your backup until erased.

If you extend these concepts to include hardware MPeg4 H.264 encoders, the SD flash card approch will allow very small high definition camcorders with no moving parts. It's only a matter of time.

*currently $1200 for 16GB
http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/P2/ .

PS: These P2 cards use parallel SD chips to get the needed transfer speed. There is no reason why the consumer version of the P2 flash card couldn't use USB2.

JVC claimed that with the amount of HD space, the users can overcome the time limit of miniDVD, or miniDV tape.

Why pick a new format that is not compatible to standard ? Is JVC just want to push their own special DVD burner ?

Originally Posted by SingSing

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Why pick a new format that is not compatible to standard ? Is JVC just want to push their own special DVD burner ?

True they do offer a very expensive non-standard DVD burner option that could be packed instead of a laptop, but a MiniDV camcorder + tapes takes much less space. Better to have the quality of DV recording.