Which kind of camcorder is better, a tapeless, or a mini DV?

Question

I am thinking about purchasing a camcorder for the summer, but I don't know a thing about them. Which kind is better, tapeless, mini DV, or DVD?

Answer 1

Mini DV

Answer 2

Mini DV is the way to go. The other methods of recording such as DVD or Hard drives compress the video so you automatically lose video quality. Also if your hard drive on your PC crashed and you didnt make a back up all your video is gone. At least on a tape you have a copy that does not degrade over time.

Answer 3

Depends on what you're looking for. Affordable? Editing capabilities?

Mini DV is Where I would go because you can transfer the vid to a PC for editing and DVD burning. But if you want convenience, get a DVD camcorder. You have to take alittle more time transferring the video to a PC for editing, but you don't have to worry about transferring and making a DVD if you don't care about editing.

Answer 4

DVD camcorders are filled with potential headaches. The files created by DVD camcorders are harder to edit than MiniDV tape or files recorded with hard disk camcorders. In some cases, people are finding it almost impossible to edit files created with DVD camcorders because their computer won't read the files. For an idea of the frustrations involved with DVD camcorders, here's a detailed article:

http://www.jakeludington.com/ask_jake/20051202_editing_sony_dvd_handycam_video.html

Most of the tapeless camcorders are easy to work with. Hard drive camcorders and SD camcorders both record files to media that can be quickly copied to your computer hard drive, saving you the trouble of capturing video from tape in real time. The only downside to hard drive camcorders is that if you run out of room on the disk, you can't get more record time by simply popping in a new tape.

MiniDV does have the advantage that if you need more tape, you can find new tapes almost anywhere. The other big advantage of tape is it's good for archiving. If you have videos you want to store for 10 years, MiniDV tape is a much better mechanism for long term backup than storing on a hard drive or DVD.

Answer 5

i just bought a canon dvd-camcorder.

Cons:-
a) largest capacity for 80mm disc at the moment is 2.8GB (double layer DL); if record at high quality, only 40 mins. DL disc, however, needs to be flip over on each side, only 1.4GB (20 mins HQ). So in effect, you possibly can only record at most 20 mins of continuous footage before you need to flip disc or change new disc.
b) Depending on your mode, if you select DVD-VIDEO, then you can't delete the scenes; only way is to re-initiate the DVD.

Pros:
a) DVD camcorder can be an external DVD burner for some editing software so that you can burn the edited video clip back into the 80mm disc.
b) Convenient because DVD-R or DVD-RW can be viewed on most DVD player.
c) No matter how much a DVD-RW is "initiaitise: erase", the new video footage would still be as good as the last.

Answer 6

i like the mini DV because once u put it into the TV u can convert it into any thingu want (i. e DVD, tape) and with a tapeless, if u lose the file , its gone, with a mini DV u always have the backup!

Answer 7

Tapeless or with DVD. You want to be able to download and watch, download and watch, download and watch and erase, download and watch and erase very quickly. I have a camera that works as the best "camcorder" I've ever had. I can capture 3 minutes of video and audio with clarity without even using a memory card. With a memory card, the possibilities are endless.
It's the Kodak EasyShare C730... Got it for $110 at Wal-Mart. Unbelievable deal at the time.
Now I'm a youtubin, video editing, dvd burning dervish!

Answer 8

I like all of them, however, tapeless quality isn't there yet. mini DV's are nice yet starting to be replaced by DVD. DVD are more expensive but will be the new thing for a long time to come.

Answer 9

32 Mb is not very much memory, at all. That is about as low as you can go. Sprint was giving away 32 Mb pen drives as a promotion a few years ago. If they can afford to give them away, you know that 32 Mb is not much memory. As for the amount of video he can record: About 5 to 10 minutes worth. Does this camcorder take memory sticks? SD, XD, or other type of memory stick? If so, then you can buy one of those (1 Gigabyte) for about $30.00 and record a couple of hours video. .

Answer 10

Mini DV.