MiniDV vs DVD Camcorders - help!

[bowmah]

I am looking to purchase a camcorder. Has DVD Camcorder dropped to the point where I should consider them? 1 year ago, they were not worth it, in my opinion. What about now?

Pros and cons appreciated too!

[Axle]

You're in luck, I know both. Personally I would go with a MiniDV camera. It's digital, good picture/sound quality. Plus the media is cheaper.

[bowmah]

Hey Axle,

Thanks for the reply. I used to only look at MiniDV BUT, consumer reports recently gave good marks for DVD camcorders. The only draw back was that it was slightly higher priced. BUT, they seem to have dropped the last few weeks. I am thinking about this one, what do you think?

Panasonic site:
http://www.panasonic.ca/English/audi...der/vdrm50.asp

Futureshop.ca:
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...3&newdeptid=14

For $799 CDN, I am not sure I can find a comparable MiniDV.

Thoughts?

[MJS]

I'm still not convinced that the DVD cam is all there yet. I would stick with the MiniDV for the time being. It is well entrenched and has a better overall quality to it. The DVD cam has a higher compression ratio, it tries to squish more stuff into the same a particular amount of space and just doesn't have the quality that MiniDV does. Shoot and edit with the MiniDV, then burn the final product to regular size DVD when you are ready,

[bowmah]

Hey Michael,

What makes you say that the quality of DVD camcorder is not as good as MiniDV. I alwasy thought this too until I saw the consumer report and it gave a few of the DVD camcorder top marks for video quality.

I understand the compression part but aren't all DVD movies compressed too? I guess it really boils down to if the compression is going to significantly affect the video quality. Any other feedback?

[another view]

bowmah, I'm having the messages posted in Viewfinder to this thread merged with the messages in the Digital Video forum. You'll probably get more help in this forum.

[bowmah]

Thanks another view. I haven't been back here in more than a year and it still rocks!

[Skyman]

As far as i am aware (and i haven't done the research myself) dvd cameras save the first frame of every second and then simply record the changes to subsecuent frames for the second, this means that for editing purposes you are reducing your ability to edit precisely. mini dv myght compress induvidual frames (but not overly) however it still records each discreet frame and therefore allows you to edit to 1/25 of a second with a pal signal, not sure what the difference is for ntsc though.

[bowmah]

Hey Skyman,

Thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated.

So, after much reading and more reading, I have come to realize that MiniDV is superior in many ways then DVD camcorders. There has been quite alot of info telling me why MiniDV is better. I guess at the end of the day, I have to find out if the following drawbacks are acceptable to me:

- maybe a lower video quality due to more compressed DVD format (maybe becasue consumer reports actually gave one of the panasonic DVD camcorders a better video quality rating)

- higher costs of DVD-RAM discs

- 30 min per DVD-RAM disc set at high quality

- DVD-RAM / DVD-R may be obsolete in a few years

- after "finalization" of DVD-RAM disc, it is NO longer writable!!! this was a first generation DVD camcorder, is this still the case?

Currently, I don't have firewire so it will be $50 to add a card.

So at this price point ($799 CDN) for this DVD camcorder, what else should I be considering?

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...3&newdeptid=14

Any more help (especailly physchological) would be appreciated!