MiniDV vs. DVD camcorder

[Cynandre]

Skyman, Your explanation is excellent.

Shwerri, saw your comment about half hour disc (1.4 GB). I just spotted a one hour 2.8 GB DVD RW disc retailed at $16 per disc (Australian dollars) - good value.

Shwerri, question for you. Ulead software did not read a DVD -R disc without finalising. What about a DVD RW disc, have you tried this format on Ulead 9.

Chris

[santiago]

I have a question.
I want to measure specific production times at the manufacturing plant where I work, and I suggested using a video camera. I've edited with Mini DV footage at home before, so it'd be quite simple doing it with a MiniDV cam. Basically what I'd do is shoot some 5 to 20 mins of production with a tripod, then transfer to a computer with firewire, and open up the video with an editing suite, I use Premiere at home. With Premiere I can scrub through the video and find exactly what point a task begins and ends with a precision of 1/30th of a second. And voila, I can calculate my efficiencies once I have the length of time determined.

But I've been asked if perhaps a DVD camcorder would suit the needs for this project better.

I hesitated at the begin, but then thought about it. I've never used a DVD cam, so I really don't know what it's like editing DVD cam footage. Obviously the quality of the image doesn't matter that much, because I'll just be shooting the video, transfering to the computer, finding the production times, then deleting the video. What I mainly want are the times.
Now, I understand that transferring video from a DVD cam takes less time, I wonder how much less. This is important, because it would be the main advantage for my purposes, since I'd be transferring alot of time each day, perhaps even 2 hours of video a day.

I remember trying to edit MPEG video with premiere years ago, and the video would look like garbage while scrubbing through the timeline, all the similar frames would just go black. When it comes to filming production procedures, minute changes may happen, such as fastening two parts with screws or reaching for material, so perhaps if I scrubbed through MPEG or MPEG2 or MPEG4 videos, I may not be able to see everything that goes on. Where as with a MiniDV, I barely ever get dropped frames, and then everything else is totally scrubbable, I can determine exactly when something starts and ends.

So my questions are the following:
1. How long does it take to transfer DVD cam video to a computer? And how is this done?
2. Can I simply pop in a DVD disc that was used for shooting with a DVD camcorder, into a computer dvd drive, and browse the video files? What format are they? VOB? Can I simply copy those files to my hard drive and open them with Premiere?
3. What is it like editing with video shot with a DVD camera? Is it scrubbable? Will I lose frames?
Bottom line, will I be able to determine the exact time when an event starts and ends to the accuracy of at least 1/3 of a second (1/30th would be perfect though)

[Skyman]

I have a question.
I want to measure specific production times at the manufacturing plant where I work, and I suggested using a video camera. I've edited with Mini DV footage at home before, so it'd be quite simple doing it with a MiniDV cam. Basically what I'd do is shoot some 5 to 20 mins of production with a tripod, then transfer to a computer with firewire, and open up the video with an editing suite, I use Premiere at home. With Premiere I can scrub through the video and find exactly what point a task begins and ends with a precision of 1/30th of a second. And voila, I can calculate my efficiencies once I have the length of time determined.

But I've been asked if perhaps a DVD camcorder would suit the needs for this project better.

I hesitated at the begin, but then thought about it. I've never used a DVD cam, so I really don't know what it's like editing DVD cam footage. Obviously the quality of the image doesn't matter that much, because I'll just be shooting the video, transfering to the computer, finding the production times, then deleting the video. What I mainly want are the times.
Now, I understand that transferring video from a DVD cam takes less time, I wonder how much less. This is important, because it would be the main advantage for my purposes, since I'd be transferring alot of time each day, perhaps even 2 hours of video a day.

I remember trying to edit MPEG video with premiere years ago, and the video would look like garbage while scrubbing through the timeline, all the similar frames would just go black. When it comes to filming production procedures, minute changes may happen, such as fastening two parts with screws or reaching for material, so perhaps if I scrubbed through MPEG or MPEG2 or MPEG4 videos, I may not be able to see everything that goes on. Where as with a MiniDV, I barely ever get dropped frames, and then everything else is totally scrubbable, I can determine exactly when something starts and ends.

So my questions are the following:
1. How long does it take to transfer DVD cam video to a computer? And how is this done?
2. Can I simply pop in a DVD disc that was used for shooting with a DVD camcorder, into a computer dvd drive, and browse the video files? What format are they? VOB? Can I simply copy those files to my hard drive and open them with Premiere?
3. What is it like editing with video shot with a DVD camera? Is it scrubbable? Will I lose frames?
Bottom line, will I be able to determine the exact time when an event starts and ends to the accuracy of at least 1/3 of a second (1/30th would be perfect though)

if you are going to use the process you described above (utilising the timcode to determine the length of a task) then i think mini dv is the better option. a dvd camera records video as an mpeg file which would not be ideal for the task you describe. the only other thing i can suggest is setting up a clock or stopwatch somewhere in the shot so you have that timing as well. good luck.

[santiago]

Another question, is the video recorded with a DVD camcorder of the same quality as the video from digital cameras? I have a digital camera I just bought, it can take 640 x 480 videos, using MPEG compression I believe. It's the Sony DSC-H1. I haven't tried shooting video with it yet, but according to what you are saying, a digital camera would be just as good as a DVD camcorder. I am almost convinced that the company should purchase a MiniDV camcorder, but I am curious to know just exactly how much quality is lost witht the MPEG codec. That way, I can simply say that if they want to purchase a DVD camcorder, they may very well be better off using a digital camera, for a similar they would have 5 Mega-pixel photo shooting, plus half decent video. In that way they might think it over again and go for the MiniDV.
On the other hand, I'm still not completely sure, since I still don't know what it's like to edit video shot with a DVD cam. Perhaps if I knew what settings the codec is set to in the DVD camera, I could take any MiniDV shot video, compress to that same setting and format, and experiment with that video, and see how it goes.

Thanks for the quick reply Skycam, my appologies for bringing up these weird questions.

[MJS]

Simply put, the Mini DVD camcorder takes the same information from the chip and squashes it into a smaller space, using MPEG-2 compression. You will not have the same detail and color depth, (intensity and hue) that you will have with the same information recorded in MiniDV. I would rather have the highest quality video available to work with and then compress it to whatever playback format you need. The video quality of the best digital still camerra is still not up to MiniDV standards. It compresses the image even more than MiniDVD and also is known to drop frames. Stick with the separate cameras for now.

[Skyman]

MJS, it seems that the last couple of posts to this thread haven't taken the time to read the explanations of the differences between mini dv, mini dvd and mpeg cameras. I think maybe we should work on a sticky that outlines these differences.

[MJS]

Great idea. PM some of your thoughts to me, I'll add mine to yours and edit and send it back, when finished, I'll sticky it as a basic terminology post, or something along that line.