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#1
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Digicam Video Quality vs. Camcorders, Camcorder Image Quality vs Digicams
A,
Recent high end digital cameras are capable of 640x480 @30fps which is pretty amazing since those parameters are equivalent to camcorders. Has anyone compared the video quality from a digicam (640, 30fps) vs camcorder under various environments? How about the audio? B. Many newer camcorders are capable of taking 1Mpixels stills. Granted these camcorders don't have the resolution for stills as real digital cameras but if one limits the still shots to 2-3 Mpix which is the limit these days, how do the shots compare to a digicam under various environments? C. All digital, tapeless (ie. uses memory card) convergent devices such as the Fisher C1 and a couple of Panasonics that shoot MPEG4 video with sound and take stills produces inferrior quality images according to reviews and costs are about the same as either the above. In other words, it is (for the time being) the worst of all worlds. Thus it would seem to make sense getting either a digital camera with video capability or camcorder with ability to take stills. |
#2
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"Richard Lee" wrote in message
... A, Recent high end digital cameras are capable of 640x480 @30fps which is pretty amazing since those parameters are equivalent to camcorders. Has anyone compared the video quality from a digicam (640, 30fps) vs camcorder under various environments? How about the audio? I have seen the Canon S1 video clip posted on one of the camera review sites. It's decent. The most important limitation of using digital camera for video is the media cost. Video is BIG. DV tape is a couple of dollars and can record 1 hr or 90 minutes [LP mode] of video. As for editing, video editor such as Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas can only handle DV codec. Some camcorders might pick up the tape transport noise but some of them also have external microphone jack so you can get clean audio. A delicated digital camcorder might also have better low light performance. B. Many newer camcorders are capable of taking 1Mpixels stills. Granted these camcorders don't have the resolution for stills as real digital cameras but if one limits the still shots to 2-3 Mpix which is the limit these days, how do the shots compare to a digicam under various environments? C. All digital, tapeless (ie. uses memory card) convergent devices such as the Fisher C1 and a couple of Panasonics that shoot MPEG4 video with sound and take stills produces inferrior quality images according to reviews and costs are about the same as either the above. In other words, it is (for the time being) the worst of all worlds. Thus it would seem to make sense getting either a digital camera with video capability or camcorder with ability to take stills. |
#3
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"Richard Lee" wrote in message
... A, Recent high end digital cameras are capable of 640x480 @30fps which is pretty amazing since those parameters are equivalent to camcorders. Has anyone compared the video quality from a digicam (640, 30fps) vs camcorder under various environments? How about the audio? I have seen the Canon S1 video clip posted on one of the camera review sites. It's decent. The most important limitation of using digital camera for video is the media cost. Video is BIG. DV tape is a couple of dollars and can record 1 hr or 90 minutes [LP mode] of video. As for editing, video editor such as Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas can only handle DV codec. Some camcorders might pick up the tape transport noise but some of them also have external microphone jack so you can get clean audio. A delicated digital camcorder might also have better low light performance. B. Many newer camcorders are capable of taking 1Mpixels stills. Granted these camcorders don't have the resolution for stills as real digital cameras but if one limits the still shots to 2-3 Mpix which is the limit these days, how do the shots compare to a digicam under various environments? C. All digital, tapeless (ie. uses memory card) convergent devices such as the Fisher C1 and a couple of Panasonics that shoot MPEG4 video with sound and take stills produces inferrior quality images according to reviews and costs are about the same as either the above. In other words, it is (for the time being) the worst of all worlds. Thus it would seem to make sense getting either a digital camera with video capability or camcorder with ability to take stills. |
#4
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Since I have some recent experience with the items you mention, I'll
comment: A. My Canon S1 IS is one of those digital still cameras with a high-grade video mode (640x480, 30FPS, progressive scan). While the video quality is stunning, it's not a practical replacement for a decent digital camcorder. The first weakness is the sound. It's a single channel of only moderate quality. The second weakness is that only a little over four minutes fills a 512MB CF card. While this does not make this kind of video recording useless, it's not the most practical. B. I recently sold my Panasonic PV-GS200 DV camcorder, and have a PV-GS400 on order. The PV-GS200 takes 2.3MP stills, and the PV-GS400 takes 4.1MP stills. Since I only have used the PV-GS200, I'll talk about that. The stills were not great. Their quality was inferior to my Canon S1 IS. Yes, the Canon is a 3.2MP camera. What I am talking about was the quality of the color and the general clarity of the images. In general, I felt the images were inferior to the Canon S100 (2.1MP) I used to have too. And this is from a camcorder that costs about $800. The video quality from the PV-GS200 is a different story - top notch. C. I have owned a Panasonic SV-AV10 and SV-AV30 tapeless multi-cams that shot stills and MPEG4 video. I currently have a Panasonic SV-AV100, which is unique as it has a real 10X optical zoom lens with an image stabilizer. It shots MPEG4, VGA grade stills and DVD grade MPEG2 with DVD grade stereo sound. The stills and MPEG4 video are pretty much what you talk about, however, the DVD grade MPEG2 video is quite good. And it is the same quality as standard DVD. In fact, I can author a DVD from the MPEG2 files directly from the camera with virtually no change in quality. Even when my PV-GS400 shows up, I'll not be turning in my digital still cameras. In spite of the good reviews for the PV-GS400 stills, I'm sure they won't outdo my Canon S1 IS, or my Canon S400, or my good old Olympus E-10. They all have their place and purpose due to their size, weight, lens quality and ease of use. Bye. "Richard Lee" wrote in message ... A, Recent high end digital cameras are capable of 640x480 @30fps which is pretty amazing since those parameters are equivalent to camcorders. Has anyone compared the video quality from a digicam (640, 30fps) vs camcorder under various environments? How about the audio? B. Many newer camcorders are capable of taking 1Mpixels stills. Granted these camcorders don't have the resolution for stills as real digital cameras but if one limits the still shots to 2-3 Mpix which is the limit these days, how do the shots compare to a digicam under various environments? C. All digital, tapeless (ie. uses memory card) convergent devices such as the Fisher C1 and a couple of Panasonics that shoot MPEG4 video with sound and take stills produces inferrior quality images according to reviews and costs are about the same as either the above. In other words, it is (for the time being) the worst of all worlds. Thus it would seem to make sense getting either a digital camera with video capability or camcorder with ability to take stills. |
#5
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"leo" wrote in message
.net... "Richard Lee" wrote in message ... A, Recent high end digital cameras are capable of 640x480 @30fps which is pretty amazing since those parameters are equivalent to camcorders. Has anyone compared the video quality from a digicam (640, 30fps) vs camcorder under various environments? How about the audio? I have seen the Canon S1 video clip posted on one of the camera review sites. It's decent. The most important limitation of using digital camera for video is the media cost. Video is BIG. DV tape is a couple of dollars and can record 1 hr or 90 minutes [LP mode] of video. Standard DV (DVCPro/DVCam) is a 50Mbit/s stream (yes, 50 megabits PER SECOND); consumer-level MiniDV is half that. Actual storage space required will vary depending on how compressable the stream is (DV *is* a compressed format) but expect anywhere from 30GB to 60GB for an hour of MiniDV video. As for editing, video editor such as Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas can only handle DV codec. Wrong - these editors (MOST editors, in fact) will use any compatible codec you install - from uncompressed AVI to DivX to MPEG-4 to Quicktime. FCP was the first to handle DV *natively*. |
#6
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"David Sommers" wrote in message
... Since I have some recent experience with the items you mention, I'll comment: [snip] B. I recently sold my Panasonic PV-GS200 DV camcorder, and have a PV-GS400 on order. The PV-GS200 takes 2.3MP stills, and the PV-GS400 takes 4.1MP stills. Since I only have used the PV-GS200, I'll talk about that. The stills were not great. Their quality was inferior to my Canon S1 IS. Yes, the Canon is a 3.2MP camera. What I am talking about was the quality of the color and the general clarity of the images. In general, I felt the images were inferior to the Canon S100 (2.1MP) I used to have too. And this is from a camcorder that costs about $800. The video quality from the PV-GS200 is a different story - top notch. I haven't actually studied the technology, so I can't comment authoritatively, but my educated guess would be that both cameras are using a lot of interpolation to arrive at anything above about 337.5kpixels, since that's the maximum resolution required for DV video (720x480). Even if they're doubling the sensor resolution for quality, that's still only 1.3MP. There's not much point to going any higher in in a video camera EXCEPT to give it betters stills ability. |
#7
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"Matt Ion" wrote in message
news:4V3Wc.176791$M95.40704@pd7tw1no... Wrong - these editors (MOST editors, in fact) will use any compatible codec you install - from uncompressed AVI to DivX to MPEG-4 to Quicktime. FCP was the first to handle DV *natively*. You're correct that many editors will handle any video format as long as there're corresponding codec but MPEG uses interframe compression which is not suitble for editing. You can, of course, uncompress each frame before or during editing, but it's not that fast and easy. |
#8
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"Matt Ion" wrote in message
news:4V3Wc.176791$M95.40704@pd7tw1no... Wrong - these editors (MOST editors, in fact) will use any compatible codec you install - from uncompressed AVI to DivX to MPEG-4 to Quicktime. FCP was the first to handle DV *natively*. You're correct that many editors will handle any video format as long as there're corresponding codec but MPEG uses interframe compression which is not suitble for editing. You can, of course, uncompress each frame before or during editing, but it's not that fast and easy. |
#9
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"leo" wrote in message
k.net... "Matt Ion" wrote in message news:4V3Wc.176791$M95.40704@pd7tw1no... Wrong - these editors (MOST editors, in fact) will use any compatible codec you install - from uncompressed AVI to DivX to MPEG-4 to Quicktime. FCP was the first to handle DV *natively*. You're correct that many editors will handle any video format as long as there're corresponding codec but MPEG uses interframe compression which is not suitble for editing. You can, of course, uncompress each frame before or during editing, but it's not that fast and easy. Hmm, NOW you tell me. After all those projects I've done in Premiere, FCP and Vegas, combining VCD (MPEG-1), AVI of various formats including DivX, DV, DVD clips (MPEG-2), and assorted stills... now you're saying what I did is next to impossible? |
#10
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"Matt Ion" writes:
Standard DV (DVCPro/DVCam) is a 50Mbit/s stream (yes, 50 megabits PER SECOND); consumer-level MiniDV is half that. Actual storage space required will vary depending on how compressable the stream is (DV *is* a compressed format) but expect anywhere from 30GB to 60GB for an hour of MiniDV video. Those numbers don't work out. 25 Mbit/s x 3600 s/hr is 90 Gb/hour, or 11.25 Gbyte/hr. If you're getting 30-60 GB on disk, then you're not storing the raw mini-DV data, but something less compressed. That may make sense for editing (you want to be able to play back in real time, possibly using a software codec) but doesn't represent what the tape drive in the camera has to deal with. Dave |
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