Q. I'm looking for a camera that provides good quality video, but is also at least semi-user friendly and not outrageously expensive. I have prior experience filming but would like to take it up more.
A. i was googling and found Canon VIXIA HF S21 Dual Flash Memory Camcorder for you which is really good.
* Records up to 24 hours of crisp high definition video to a 64GB internal flash drive or directly to two removable SD memory cards
* Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens
* Canon 1/2.6" 8.59-Megapixel Full HD CMOS Image Sensor captures video at 1920 x 1080 resolution
* Canon DIGIC DV III Image Processor
* Dynamic SuperRange OIS corrects a full range of motion
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-HF-S21-Memory-Camcorder/dp/B00322OP40/?tag=pntsa-20
* Records up to 24 hours of crisp high definition video to a 64GB internal flash drive or directly to two removable SD memory cards
* Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens
* Canon 1/2.6" 8.59-Megapixel Full HD CMOS Image Sensor captures video at 1920 x 1080 resolution
* Canon DIGIC DV III Image Processor
* Dynamic SuperRange OIS corrects a full range of motion
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-HF-S21-Memory-Camcorder/dp/B00322OP40/?tag=pntsa-20
why do they recommend a tape or mini tape camcorders for beginner filmmakers instead of a hd camcorder ?
Q. i will be using the camcorder for filming videos for youtube and such..
A. MiniDV tape:
-Is cheap, easily additive storage, and it's an instant archive. For about $3, I can get an hour of tape. I can get as many as I need - no need to purchase more and more SD cards or hard drives. Also, as soon as I'm done shooting a tape, that's my archive. I don't necessarily NEED to back it up or erase it in order to "make more space" on the camera. Just pop in a new tape.
-Carries the highest-quality consumer formats. In standard definition, it is the ONLY consumer-level format that uses "intraframe" compression; that is, each frame is self-contained. It doesn't have to do calculations based on frames around it in order to "fill in" the content. "Interframe" compression carries much less information per frame, and instead relies on other frames from which to calculate the video data.
For years, I have sworn by tape for those reasons. Computers choked on heavily-compressed file formats, and it took a long time to transcode them to more editing-friendly formats. Quality of file-based formats was relatively low, with low data rates being used in camcorders. SD cards were ridiculously expensive. The time it took to properly work with file-based formats simply was not worth the effort.
That said, nowadays, I'm agreeing less and less that tape is THE format to hold onto. Many of the problems that people have had with file-based consumer camcorders are being alleviated. Computers are being built with more powerful processors and graphics cards, which more easily handle the calculations needed to play interframe formats like H.264. Flash memory is getting cheaper. Hard drives are getting bigger. Data rates of file-based formats are getting higher, which means increasing video quality. Video editing programs are being developed as 64-bit applications now - the big three players, Avid, Apple, and Adobe, now all have 64-bit versions of their flagship programs, which means better performance with these formats. And in a stunning trend, it's getting harder to find computers with FireWire ports, which are key for using DV tape, as computer manufacturers move to USB3. I'm still scratching my head over that one. Thunderbolt is coming soon, though...
Honestly, if I were to be buying a camera now, I'd be giving a really good, long look at some of the file-based cameras, namely those which use removable media like SDHC or SDXC cards. Storage is getting cheaper, computers are becoming more powerful, and the quality of these cameras is getting better and better. For long-term backups, Blu-Ray drives and discs are getting cheaper, as are, again, large hard drives.
It may be a good 4-5 years after people started saying it, but I am starting to believe that tape is finally on its last legs. There are still some great tape cameras out there, cameras like Canon's HV40 - but the gap between their benefits and those of file-based cameras is getting very, very narrow now.
Getting a camera for home use, I'd probably make the jump to a file-based format now. Maybe that's just me. However, for professional use, I'd look for a format like AVC-Intra, or a camera with SDI output, as those are the ways to keep intraframe compression options.
-Is cheap, easily additive storage, and it's an instant archive. For about $3, I can get an hour of tape. I can get as many as I need - no need to purchase more and more SD cards or hard drives. Also, as soon as I'm done shooting a tape, that's my archive. I don't necessarily NEED to back it up or erase it in order to "make more space" on the camera. Just pop in a new tape.
-Carries the highest-quality consumer formats. In standard definition, it is the ONLY consumer-level format that uses "intraframe" compression; that is, each frame is self-contained. It doesn't have to do calculations based on frames around it in order to "fill in" the content. "Interframe" compression carries much less information per frame, and instead relies on other frames from which to calculate the video data.
For years, I have sworn by tape for those reasons. Computers choked on heavily-compressed file formats, and it took a long time to transcode them to more editing-friendly formats. Quality of file-based formats was relatively low, with low data rates being used in camcorders. SD cards were ridiculously expensive. The time it took to properly work with file-based formats simply was not worth the effort.
That said, nowadays, I'm agreeing less and less that tape is THE format to hold onto. Many of the problems that people have had with file-based consumer camcorders are being alleviated. Computers are being built with more powerful processors and graphics cards, which more easily handle the calculations needed to play interframe formats like H.264. Flash memory is getting cheaper. Hard drives are getting bigger. Data rates of file-based formats are getting higher, which means increasing video quality. Video editing programs are being developed as 64-bit applications now - the big three players, Avid, Apple, and Adobe, now all have 64-bit versions of their flagship programs, which means better performance with these formats. And in a stunning trend, it's getting harder to find computers with FireWire ports, which are key for using DV tape, as computer manufacturers move to USB3. I'm still scratching my head over that one. Thunderbolt is coming soon, though...
Honestly, if I were to be buying a camera now, I'd be giving a really good, long look at some of the file-based cameras, namely those which use removable media like SDHC or SDXC cards. Storage is getting cheaper, computers are becoming more powerful, and the quality of these cameras is getting better and better. For long-term backups, Blu-Ray drives and discs are getting cheaper, as are, again, large hard drives.
It may be a good 4-5 years after people started saying it, but I am starting to believe that tape is finally on its last legs. There are still some great tape cameras out there, cameras like Canon's HV40 - but the gap between their benefits and those of file-based cameras is getting very, very narrow now.
Getting a camera for home use, I'd probably make the jump to a file-based format now. Maybe that's just me. However, for professional use, I'd look for a format like AVC-Intra, or a camera with SDI output, as those are the ways to keep intraframe compression options.
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