[MacDV] In the market for a new Camcorder

[Rauno Teravainen]

It's been slow, 2 to 10 posts a month.
Just a short story of my struggle with the same questions and my 
eventual solution. 
I used to have a Panasonic for a long time, but about a year ago it's 
tape transport mechanism went kaputt.  I still used it by capturing 
directly to a Power Book, but that was cumbersome/awkward at the best.  
So I decided to buy a new HD camcorder.
The make/model I finally decided for was Hitachi DZ-BD10HA and I love 
it.  It is a full 1080X1920 HD camcorder.  It's also called a BlueRay 
Camcorder, it has a 30 GB hard drive as the main storage, SD card slot 
(for video or 6 Megapixel stills) and a BD burner for 80mm BlueRay.  It 
is like dream to me, does what it is supposed to do and does it well.  
It records in AVCHD format, which is based on mpeg-4 as I understand it, 
the files are easily loaded to any newish Mac (I have used both, Intel 
iMac 24 Dual Duo 2.8 GHz and an old G-5 tower with two 1.8 Ghz 
processors) and converted, by Toast for example, to full size HDV or 
H.264, which both can be edited by any of the Apple's video editors.  I 
am not aware, however, of any editor capable of working on AVCHD directly. 
I paid for it $799 at Sams and I think the current Sams price is $599.

Anyway, my two cents.

I hope this helps to explore the possibilities there are today, at the 
time I bought mine, there was no information available how or if it 
would work with Mac, but I bought it because of the new AVCHD standard 
speculating that it would then or soon after be Mac compatible.  It was 
from the day one.

Rauno.








Conlon Brett wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> Not too long ago I mentioned on this list that I dropped my Panasonic 
> GS-400 on the concrete, after which the captured image became quite 
> yellow. I've had a service assessment on it and they tell me the CCD 
> needs replacing ($700 AUD).
>
> So I can either throw good money at an old machine or potentially look 
> at a new device - which would of course be HD.
>
> Being quite a fan of the Panasonic, I've read a few reviews for the 
> Panasonic HDC-HS300 and am interested in it. Anyone have this model or 
> any feelings about it? Other preferences, perhaps?
>
> Now, moving to the HD arena I have a few other questions...
>
> I've been a fan of tapes  to date (per MB they are/were good value) - 
> or am I just way behind the times??? My concerns moving to HD are 
> regarding quaity. Most cameras capture in MPEG-2, right? (I think some 
> also capture in .mov). I've felt concerned capturing in MPEG-2 (a 
> heavily compressed format) then downloading to the computer for 
> editing, then to re-encode again for authoring to DVD. Is there an 
> appropriate workflow to maintain quality?
>
> I've been shooting in 16:9 and would like to continue to do so. I'm 
> not fully up on the appropriate/best resolutions 1080 (is there a 
> 1080p or something?). Is there a good, quick read somewhere for 
> getting myself updated with the newer standards?
>
> Sorry, lotsa questions, I know...
>
> Any/all help most appreciated!!!  8-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Cojcolds
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