This is a reply to an email I received asking about camcorders. I though the info might be of use so I have posted it here.

Ok Kimmy Sue, I see by my inbox you have a busy day planned for me! I will address each email separately so we don’t get all crossed up here.

Camcorders.

The argument that you need a purpose built camcorder to record video instead of using . . . → Read More: Camcorders Still Cameras and Codecs]]>

This is a reply to an email I received asking about camcorders. I though the info might be of use so I have posted it here.

Ok Kimmy Sue,
I see by my inbox you have a busy day planned for me! I will address each email separately so we don’t get all crossed up here.

Camcorders.

The argument that you need a purpose built camcorder to record video instead of using the video capabilities of a still camera gets weaker everyday.
Consumer camcorders were the best in the past and even up to last year, but it has all changed now.

Most consumer camcorders have very small lenses and because of that they restrict you greatly in what you can really achieve. For family ‘point and shoot’ of course they are fine but if you want to go further then they will always fall short because of the lens. If you look at some you will see they have very small openings for the lens itself.

Video is just photography on crack. Ultimately the quality depends on the ability of the camera or camcorder to record light and that really takes us straight to the lens. The main difference between something shot by an amateur and something shot by a pro is depth of field. This is important. Remember I told you to try to de-focus the background footage? The reason for this is that if you look closely at how movies and TV shows are shot you will notice that the main action is always in sharp focus and whatever is happening in the background is out of focus. This is achieved by being able to control the aperture of the lens. Most consumer camcorders cannot do this or cannot do this very well.

Shakin’ all over.

You have entered the world of high definition. This means that you now have a new best friend. Meet Mr. Tripod! You may as well have him surgically attached to your body because from this moment forward you are forbidden to take hand-held shaky shots following your husband around the house annoying the crap out of him! The codecs being used to compress the HD footage you are taking do not “compress.” They actually take a whole bunch of the image data and throw it away! This results in small file sizes with amazingly good quality. The trade off is in the ability of these new codecs to display motion smoothly. Panning across a scene too fast or moving the camera will result in jumpy or jittery motion so you have to keep that to an absolute minimum. Use a tripod or BE a tripod… it’s up to you.

Audio.

This first thing you are going to notice once you settle down and get over the video editing excitement is that hey!… my videos sound like shit! That’s because they do! The audience wont notice, they will just leave either physically or mentally without knowing why. The most important part of video is… audio! You must get a cam that has a jack for an external mic. The on-board mics of camcorders and cameras suck mightily and will destroy any effort you make in creating a good looking video.

Put A Sock In It

Actually that’s incorrect. Put a sock ON it. When shooting outside using an external mic (because you read the previous paragraph) take a wind sock with you and always use it. There is nothing worse than getting home and discovering that all you can hear in the video is the sound of a gentle breeze constantly blowing across the mic surface… and nothing else.

Compression

Currently for High Definition we have two main camps. Under one label you have h.264 under many guises such as AVCHD, .mov, MP4 blah, blah, blah. On the other side we have HDV. HDV is the same architecture as MPEG2 which you find on standard definition DVDs. The difference is that the resolution had been ramped up to HD standard and the bitrate (amount of data per second) has equally been ramped up from around 4 to 5Mb per second to around 25 Mb per second.

Both give great quality but the AVCHD/MP4 camp gives smaller file size. The real difference for me is that AVCHD/MP4 still presents the user with great difficulty in editing and requires an enormous amount of processing power to manipulate.

Whilst the whole MP4/H.264/AVCHD camp represents the wave of the future HDV will still be around for a long time yet and is easier to deal with. HOWEVER take note that HDV camcorders use tape to record rather than solid state memory cards so you can only transfer it to a computer in real time. An hour of video takes an hour to get on to the hard drive.

So what to buy?
Well I guess it comes down to cost in the end so here are some recommendations.

Camcorders

Kodak Z18 Pocket Video Camera.

For around a hundred bucks this little camcorder is great for “talking head” videos for online type presentations and can be carried around in your pocket to shoot anytime you want. It has a mic jack so you can plug a decent microphone into it for good sound and records very nice HD footage.

Click to see in full

Canon Vixia HV30

This is a HDV camcorder recording to tape. It is my pick of the dedicated camcorders because Canon have included a big fat ol’ lens out the front allowing for great shots and good control over depth of field and low-light situations. It has external mic capability and produces beautiful video.

Click to see in full

Panasonic DMC-DH1

Still camera with great video properties.

Click to see in full

EOS 5D Mark II

This would be my pick for a still cam to take video. No point telling you why… just watch this video shot with one. The final episode of “House” was shot entirely with one of these. By the way, take note in the video of the way it is edited. Look at just how they go from one shot to the next.

Click here to see in full

For me, because the technology is evolving so fast and new models are being released all the time, trying to keep up with it all is best left to the experts and in . . . → Read More: How to Choose the Best Camcorder]]> I just noticed that the guys’n'gals over at Camcorderinfo .com have posted their top camcorder choices for 2009. Although I feel pretty confident in talking about video editing software here I would be the first to admit that when it comes to camcorders I don’t have that much of an idea!

For me, because the technology is evolving so fast and new models are being released all the time, trying to keep up with it all is best left to the experts and in this case I totally defer to camcorderinfo.com. Anytime I have purchased a new camcorder since I first started playing with video I have simply gone to that site and have never been steered wrong.

Now having said that it is also good to keep in mind that those guys are total video uber-geeks and although they work very hard at remaining understandable to the average Joe… well sometimes the sheer amount of technical data gets a bit overwhelming!

Over the years I have developed my own system for using Camcorderinfo.com to safely make a great choice of camcorder and retain what remains of my sanity along the way. So here’s how to simply use Camcorderinfo.com to choose the best video camcorder for your needs.

Before you start you need to decide between high definition or standard definition and the key points really are quite simple. HD is going to require the need of a tripod or VERY steady hand while shooting for the moment. The codecs being used for both HDV (MPEG2 on crack for high definition) and AVCHD have some way to go before they will handle motion as smoothly as SD. Running around doing hand held shots of the kids in HD is not going to go well!

HD also means that you need a cam with a seriously good auto-focus feature as well as good manual control as anything even slightly out of focus looks terrible. SD is much more forgiving. HD will also require some pretty sizable computing horsepower for editing and in the case of AVCHD you need a Ferrari.

So really if you are going to using the cam for lots of fixed shooting and have the computing power to deal with it then HD is for you.

If you don’t fit into the above then I would go with SD at the moment. There are some very good SD cams on offer now because they are on the way out and for incredibly low prices. Additionally there are a number of video editing software producers that have come out with SD to HD video upscaling features that perform very well. These will only get better with time but even now they do a pretty good job of converting your old footage into HD specs.

So now that you have chosen the format here is the procedure:

1. Go to the Camcorder Ratings page and take a look at the top 20 to 25 camcorders. Understand that all the camcorders on this page are good. The only difference between them is whether or not they are good for you and your specific needs. Choose the ones that are the right definition for you (SD or HD) and are within your budget. Eliminate the ones that are not applicable. Eg. You don’t want a mini-cam like a Flip Mino etc.. You should be left with a list of ten or more cams that roughly fit nto the style of cam you want.

2. In a new tab on your browser or new window click on the first camcorder to go to the review page. Scroll down to the Good/Bad grid and check to see of there are any “deal breakers” in there. If yes, eliminate it, if no keep going.

3. Scroll back up the page and click on the “Conclusion” entry. Read the info and again look for deal breakers. If yes eliminate it and if no then note down the cam.

4. Go back to the Camcorder Ratings page and repeat for each camcorder you have on the list. It is very likely that by the time you finish this process your list will have reduced a lot.

5. Once you have completed those steps go through each of the remaining models and look for features you definitely want. The reviews are broken into sections so you can quickly go through to find these.

By now you should be down to about three or four (or even less) choices. Take your time and read through the reviews one by one. Take notes if you have to. Here is the important part:

6. As you are reading he reviews you must adopt an utterly selfish and self-centered attitude! The reviewers are attempting to write for everyone and from everyone’s point of view. You are only interested in your point of view. Keep a realistic view in mind of what you will be using the camcorder for and under what circumstances and conditions.

Eg. The reviewer may note the cam’s lack of manual controls and downgrade his evaluation of the cam because of that. I on the other hand, have a ten year old son who only operates at two speeds. Dead stop or 1,000,000 miles per hour! There is no way that manual controls would ever be necessary for me. I would never have time to set them. I need really good auto-controls.

Once you have completed this process one thing will become clear… there is no perfect camcorder for you! All you can do is get as close as possible to the best one… not the perfect one. Good luck and I hope this helps.