im in the market for a new video camera and why not go hd right. ive used a mini dv sony camera for the past few years and its worked out perfectly. using firewire(1394) is easy to transfer and edit with. my comp has plenty of horsey's to go hd so anyways on to my real question. im having a hard time deciding if i should get a sony hdd or mini dv in hd. which has the better quality. the models im looking at are the HDR-HC5 which is the min dv, or an hd model like HDR-SR5C . does mini dv look as good as on hdd. the biggest reason im favoring the minidv, even though it cuts some stuff id like on the hdd is that the mini dv has firewire support. im used to doing it this way and think it would be wise, then again using no tapes might be nice to. however most models dont support firewire(1394). ive been trying to do research and from what i can tell is you can use usb 2.0 for transferring on to a pc. how slow is that? anyways im very confused and would like somew help clearing a few issues on transferring my stuff on my pc. can someone help me out on all this. thanks in advance, sorry for being to long.

The Canon HV20 will transfer video (HD or SD) to your PC using 1394 and provides the best under $2500 picture quality out there today.

The HV20 uses HDV/MiniDV tape and can be purchased typically for around $899.

If you're used to transferring video off MiniDV Tape via Firewire, and you don't mind it, you will probably end up with better picture quality today with an HDV camera with MiniDV tape.

Hard Disk cameras do not need Firewire, and because of the random access nature of the media, USB2 works well.

Theoretically, transferrinf video from an HDD based camera will be easier than from a HDV camera, however, actually editing may be more problematic.


Bottom line, is, if you're leaning towards HDV (MiniDV tape based), then go for it. HDD is better for us types who don't want to deal with changing tapes at inopportune times, and for easier capture into the PC. I think, today, we suffer a (slight) degradation in quality for the convenience.

Just my opinion.

- Mike

I have two Sony's with Mini-DV and I'm leaning toward a new Sony with a hard disk because I can't stand playing the videos real time through the firewire in my laptop in order to get them to my NAS drive. I love the idea of a hard drive but Sony seems to have changed a bit. I want to have a video input in case I want to record from my Tivo in order to get the video to my NAS. Sony seems to have deleted that feature in the hi-def hard drive units. I can input to my PCR-100 but not my PCR-330 and I can't find one that is High -Def that has a analog input. I'm not nuts about Sony but I would prefer to stay with Sony only because of all the extra stuff I have. I would love to find one that has a component inout so I could transfer from my Tivo unit.

john

I love my HV20. I bought based on PQ first, and a few other features in cam were important. I also like the fact with miniDV after I've captured the footage, the backup is just the tape itself....I don't record over anything. I've lost hard drives in the past too, and would have had to backup all my footage to two drives to feel safe....