[jqp]

There has been very little discussion of videography, maybe it is a relatively young, ubiquitous hobby/family chore.  

Who has a camcorder? Do you ever use it semi-artistically?

I have kept up with the technology, behind the bleeding edge. I have a Sony 8mm, a Sony Digital8, and a Canon HV30 HDV format camcorder.

I have many hours of tape in each format.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I have a JVC 16:9 with harddrive based storage, not sure the model number. Works pretty decent, but the picture quality is a little dissapointing. The zoom is absolutely amazing. I can see the soccer mom's from over two soccer fields away. 
I've never used it artistically though. I tried to put together a "video collage" of a Blue Angels air show once that turned out to be more of a PITA than it was worth. My wife has (more time on her hands) done a few collage DVD's for the grandparents of our kids, complete with music in the background.
But nothing really artsy though.

The harddrive storage is a wonderful feature IMO. It hold up to 37 hours of (crappy) video, or 7 hours of ("acceptable") video.

Bob

[IronLion]

I make my living with a videocamera, not a full-size shoulder TV camera but a Sony EX1.  I don't have a camcorder per se but my backup camera is an HDV camcorder.  Some of my work is artistic, some of it is less so, depends on the assignment.  These new tapeless cameras, in my job, are a great timesaver. 

[jqp]

Here is the JVC GZMG21US


Here is the Digital8 Sony DCR-TRV730 (circa 2001-2002)


This is the Canon HV30


Here is the Sony EX1 - yes this is not exactly a camcorder...

[jqp]

I make my living with a videocamera, not a full-size shoulder TV camera but a Sony EX1.  I don't have a camcorder per se but my backup camera is an HDV camcorder.  Some of my work is artistic, some of it is less so, depends on the assignment.  These new tapeless cameras, in my job, are a great timesaver. 

You have to have a good source and good technique, but a lot of the time is in processing/editing and creating the finished product (e.g. a DVD), even for the consumer videographer. I feel this realy tends to limit the process of videography to enthusiasts and professionals.Sometimes it makes sense to just make a DVD of the raw footage to give to someone, and let them do some of that work!

[IronLion]

I make my living with a videocamera, not a full-size shoulder TV camera but a Sony EX1.  I don't have a camcorder per se but my backup camera is an HDV camcorder.  Some of my work is artistic, some of it is less so, depends on the assignment.  These new tapeless cameras, in my job, are a great timesaver. 

You have to have a good source and good technique, but a lot of the time is in processing/editing and creating the finished product (e.g. a DVD), even for the consumer videographer. I feel this realy tends to limit the process of videogrphy to enthusiasts and professionals.Sometimes it makes sense to just make a DVD of the raw footage to give to someone, and let them do some of that work!

Trust me I know what you mean.  Yesterday was an 18 hour day from start to finish, from setup, filming, to editing and publishing.  I'm on an overnight deadline to publish a quality video at least once a week- in the days when I shot tape sometimes I wouldn't even get around to publishing until the sun was up.  Now with recording to memory cards, I can get to bed by 4 or 5.   

With a fancy $8000-$10,000 computer to edit and compress on, I'd be in bed by 2-3.

[jqp]

My Canon is HDV format, on MiniDV tape.

What format doe sthe EX-1 do on memory card?

[IronLion]

I shoot in HDV on it, but it also records in "Full-HD", or 1920×1080 resolution.  The most pleasant surprise coming from the HVR-Z1U (HDV on Mini DV like your canon) was a noticeably better performance in low light and also a shallower DOF.  It is a quirky camera, but a good one once you're used to it (same could be said about any camera I guess).  The memory cards it uses though are not cheap; I'm just glad I don't have to pay for any of that stuff myself.     

[jqp]

This is the Sony HVR-Z1U

[nathanm]

I've just been shooting a video for work-related stuff.  We're using one of those dinky cameras like in JQP's first post.  It's a Canon something or other.  It isn't bad, but it doesn't have a microphone input.  So I'm recording the "actors" with a wireless mic and a portable digital recorder and doing manual sound sync with a hand clap.  You will be able to see this atrocity on YouTube soon.  Oi Vey!  It certainly makes you appreciate what the pros have to do when you do these things yourself.  We spent about four hours getting three shots for about a minute of screen time.  It's "creative" all right, they are making up the script as they go!  Whaddaya gonna do, they picked Cheap and Fast.

I still have not actually seen HD video on a screen, to my knowledge.  It must be nice.  I'm way jealous of that camera already!  Heh!  Is it a pain in the ass to edit high def?  The storage space of regular DV is phenomenal as is, HD must be downright nutty.

[IronLion]

I still have not actually seen HD video on a screen, to my knowledge.  It must be nice.  I'm way jealous of that camera already!  Heh!  Is it a pain in the ass to edit high def?  The storage space of regular DV is phenomenal as is, HD must be downright nutty.

HD video on a good HDTV is great, especially for football games and video games.  The immersion factor is just that much higher.

You might be surprised to know DV and HDV take up the same amount of space on a hard drive.  However, HDV is not the resolution or quality that you would see when watching a network-broadcast football game.  It is basically a consumer/prosumer format to boost pixel resolution. 

"HD" these days is such an overused and undefined term, that people (including myself) are very confused by it and aren't sure what they're getting or seeing.  Its just like "Digital" in the 80's I imagine, though I was just a baby then...

Oh, as far as editing HDV, its not bad, it really just adds to the time to compress video into a "smaller" format. 

[jqp]

Transferring tape to computer takes the same amount of time of course - one hour of tape takes one hour to move to computer.

DV 720x480 = 3.7MB/sec (25 Megabit per second) HDV 1440x1080 is about the same. It varies with codec used.

So this is 11-12 GB per hour of video. Its a good thing I have a couple of 1000GB drives. Storage of hundreds of hours of RAW video is on tape, clips are on the harddrive.

"The HDV video format supports MPEG-2 compressed video (MP@H-14), at two 16:9 resolutions:
- 720p (1280 x 720, progressive), at approximately 19 Mbps data rate
- 1080i (1440 x 1080, interlaced), at approximately 25 Mbps data rate"

[jqp]

Yeah I figure HD video on a good HDTV costs about 2-3 times what it appears to on the surface (the price of an "HDTV") once you implement it in your home.

[nathanm]

Here's the reason you pay people like IronLion to do things right!  If you want to see what the bottom of the video image quality barrel looks like, I think I've reached it.  Thank you iMovie Ken Burns effect, we have truly bought the stair steps to heaven!  And thank you YouTube, for applying a layer of filth to the crud.  Where else besides video editing can you put so much work into something and still get complete shit at the end?  You may have to use an eye rinse after watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB0rM3SgxfA

Or better yet, go look up that footage from that new SLR.  That will clean off the dirty feeling.  I apologize in advance, I won't be able to refund anyone's wasted time.  You have been warned!

[low.pfile]

I have a sony trv-900 3ccd sitting in the closet. I bet it has 20 hours total on it. Need to get it on ebay.

had aspirations of short films. parties and the such and never took it out. imovie and Final Cut still didn't convince me to continue down that path!

[PhilNYC]

I had an old Sony DCR-PC1 (one of Sony's first miniDV camcorders) that died about a year ago.  Instead of jumping into the HD camcorder market then (it was still too early IMHO), I picked up a Panasonic PV-GS300:

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/panasonic-pv-gs300/4505-6500_7-31660647.html?tag=mncol;lst