| MiniDV Tapes | | | | DVD/BD |
| Mini DV camcorders: | | | | Enjoy the convenience before they disappear from |
| FOR: | | | | shelves forever… |
| - High quality images | | | | For: |
| - Easy to use | | | | - Straight Forward and easy to use |
| - Tapes and camcorders are cheaper | | | | - Decent quality |
| AGAINST: | | | | - Instant playback in your DVD/BD |
| - Lengthy Transfer Process | | | | - Convenient |
| - Not as convenient of flexible to transfer footage | | | | AGAINST: |
| - No in – camcorder editing | | | | - DVD/BD disc limited capacity |
| Once the industry standard, what does this format | | | | - Spare media could get expensive |
| offer consmers today? | | | | - Format not popular for camcorders |
| MiniDV tapes were considered the industry standard | | | | DVD camcorders are becoming less popular and will |
| format for consumers; they’re easy to use, | | | | soon be dropped by manufactures. They are |
| small, a familiar format and give high quality results. | | | | affordable and offer a very convenient and easy |
| However, times change and there are more flexible | | | | format to get to grips with. However, the chief plus |
| and convenient formats for consumers to opt for | | | | point is that you can take your recently recorded |
| instead. | | | | footage and drop in into a DVD player or PC for |
| The MiniDV is probably the least and most | | | | instant playback without needing any extra cables or |
| time-consuming option to transfer footage from for | | | | some sort of transferring procedure. You can also |
| the beginner, as you have to play the whole tape to | | | | use your DVD enabled PC to edit footage and you |
| transfer it. | | | | have easy access to the footage on DVD because |
| There are Five ways to transfer footage from | | | | you don’t have to keep going forwards ans |
| MiniDV: composite A/V leads – the red, white | | | | backwards to find a particular scene, as is the case |
| (sound) and yellow (video) plugs – and An | | | | with MiniDVs. |
| S-video cable, though both of these downgrade the | | | | The downside is that the 8cm DVDs used in HD |
| footage from HD to standard definition, so they tend | | | | camcorders only hold around 15 – 20 minutes of |
| to be used purely for viewing on an SD. ADV cable | | | | footage per disc and at around £2 per disc, it can |
| (or FireWire) , and USB 2.0 Both maintain the HD | | | | get expensive. Plus, you’ve always got to carry |
| quality. The last way is using an HDMI cable – | | | | spares around with you and you have to decide |
| though this is just for viewing. | | | | which type of DVD to buy: write once DVDs (DVD |
| Composite Av and S-video can go into Your DVD | | | | –R) for extra storage capacity. |
| recorder and PCs. FireWire is for connecting to a PC. | | | | The quality of images is very high, but not quite as |
| If you are saving the footage to your computer, you | | | | high as that from MiniDV camcorders. But for the |
| will need bags of room for HD footage, and plenty of | | | | average buyer, the convenience and simplicity of |
| Ram memory too. You will also need dedicated | | | | DVD/BD far outweighs the minor difference in quality. |
| software if you want to edit footage in any way. | | | | Flash Memory Cards |
| Hard Disc Drive | | | | Removable media cards have enabled camcorders to |
| What are the benefits of recording onto a hard drive | | | | get ever smaller. |
| over removable media? | | | | FOR: |
| FOR: | | | | - Straightforward and easy to use |
| - Large storage capacity (up to 240GB) | | | | - Smaller and lighter camcorders |
| - Familiar recording format | | | | - Future proof |
| - Compact | | | | - Convenient |
| AGAINST: | | | | AGAINST: |
| - More expensive than MiniDV and DVD, without the | | | | - Limited memory card capacity |
| quality of MiniDV | | | | - More expensive |
| - Hard drives can fail | | | | Removable media cards (SD, SDHC, and Memory |
| Built in HDD hard disk drive (HDD) are now | | | | Stick) are solid state (they have no moving parts), |
| commonplace in camcorders. They work in the same | | | | retain data without the need for power, are vey |
| way as your PC’s hard drive in that they store | | | | small yet have high capacities (up to 64GB at the |
| all of the footage internally, so there is no need for | | | | moment, but with 1 &2TB on the way) and fast |
| removable memory storage, such as cards or tapes. | | | | transfer speeds. Card capacities are ever growing to |
| The benefits of HDD hard disk drive camcorders re: | | | | meet the demand of ever bigger file sizes, so it |
| long recording times, compact dimensions and that | | | | possibly won’t be long before they could |
| you can easily access your footage at random place | | | | overtake hard disc drives as the convenient form for |
| in the recording timeline, which makes for convenient | | | | video storage especially as you can transfer footage |
| editing in –camcorder. | | | | to your PC just by inserting the card. |
| A possible downside is the argument made by some | | | | Editing in camcorder is easy too, as the footage can |
| that hard drives can be fragile ( for example, if the | | | | be viewed at no point in the timeline (called random |
| camera is accidentally dropped) and they will | | | | access). Also, as memory cards are physically small, |
| eventually wear out. Of course, as you’re | | | | the camcorders can e smaller and lighter too a real |
| recording onto an internal medium, you will also need | | | | benefit if you want to travel lights, as well as making |
| to transfer it off the camcorder onto a DVD or your | | | | it easier to handhold without introducing camera |
| PC at some future point. When you are transferring | | | | shakes. Furthermore, battery usage/power demand is |
| the footage, your footage appears as single files that | | | | far less and some Panasonic TVs, Sony’s |
| you can drag and drop, much like many PC | | | | Playstation 3 and some DVD players also have |
| operations, making it a familiar format for consumers. | | | | memory card slots so that you can insert your card |
| Transferring your footage involves connecting your | | | | and watch footage directly from it. |
| camcorder using DV (firewire) or USB 2.0 cables, and | | | | Of course, thee are a few downsides, such as the |
| software if you want to edit. Of the two options, | | | | potential to lose memory cards (small isn’t |
| DV will be the faster method to transfer footage. | | | | always better! |