hi all,
I wanted to buy a camcorder and wanted to know whether to buy a
digital one or analog one. The need is mostly for outdoors (on a road
trip and might be shot in dark). I am looking in the price range of
about $800 (max up to $1000)

I read some reviews and wanted to clarify some things about camcorders
in general and digital in particular:
1) What kind of onboard memory does that the digital camcorders have?
2) What is the capacity of such memory (I didn't find this in the
product specifications)
3) What format does a digital camcorder store the video onboard?
3a) Is a video editing software needed even this case?
4) I read a camera review website that about 13GB of disk space is
needed to edit/save a 1hr video. Is that true? (Asking for such high
space and fast disks is a bit too much)
5) Is a TV-tuner card required to transfer the video from the camera
to a PC?

Thanks a lot (in advance)

Bala.

"balls" <bkbsub@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cc37d03a.0310281237.1d8e6d94@posting.google.c om...
Memory cards like still camers use



Same as cameras



DV-2 avi, which is 13Gb per 60 minutes


Yes, to trim extraneous or unwantred footage, to encode to a DVD capable
size at 4.7Gb, and to add a menu, chapters for easy access to any sequences
you wish



yes, 13Gb per hour, but you will encode that to one DVD


Firewire to the PC. If you have VHS tapes, you can pas sdthen thru the
camera with the supplied AV cable from VCR to DV camcvorder, and to PC via
firewire, leaving you the DV avi file on your PC

hi,

If so, how much do they cost?

It would be helpful if you could give an estimate of the digital video
camcorder along with the accessories (memory card etc. etc.)

Thanks,
bala.

"balls" <bkbsub@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cc37d03a.0310281237.1d8e6d94@posting.google.c om...
Camcorders don't have onboard memory for video, only for stills. Sonys use
Memory Sticks.

Up to the limit of the format, currently around 1GB. However, as I noted,
digital camcorders don't use solid-state memory. Video is stored on tape.
MiniDV tapes hold 1 hour at SP mode, which is 13 GB of storage. They can
also record in LP mode, with no loss of video quality, for 90 minutes.
Panasonic makes 80 minute SP tapes.

DV25.

It depends on what you want to do. Editing software is just that -- it lets
you edit, rearrange, cut, add transitions and effects, etc. If you want to
get the video into your camera, you'll need capture softwrae. If you want
to make DVDs, you'll need something to transcode to MPEG2 (some editors have
it built in), and then author.

Yes, it's true and, no, it's not too much -- it's just right. A 120 GB
drive will hold more than 8 hours of video and costs less than $100. My
system has three data drives totaling 400 GB.

It's one way to do it, but definitely not the best way. The standard for
transferring miniDV is via 1394/Firewire. All miniDV camcorders have 1394
ports. A 1394 card for a PC costs about $20. Note, too, that transferring
video this way, even though called "capture," is really nothing more than a
straight file transfer from the camcorder to the computer. Capturing the
analog video output of the camcorder with an analog card or TV tuner card
would work, but would result in significant loss of quality.