Help choose setup from Camera to DVD burner

[cjolley]

We will be taking a trip next year and will need to video much of it.
The questions are:
1, What type of camera? minidv, vhs, minicd etc.
For example the new minidvd ones look convenient but price/min look terrible.

2, What is the best way to get the vid to wind up on DVDs?

The thing is, that this is not a hobby for me so it will be sort of a one shot thing.

I expect that we will make about 8 - 16 hours of video total.
After that the setup will just be used like any home video setup that spends 99.9% of it's time in the closet.

Thanks,
Chuck

[Dr Mordrid]

At this point miniDV is the option that'll be supported long term. At one time I'd have included Digital8, but of late it looks to be yet another propriatory Sony format headed for the heap.

If you want a good price on tapes get them at a warehouse store like SAMS (Walmart) or Costco. I get mine at $22.73 for a 6 pack of Maxell 60's. That would put your total tape cost at about $45.

Getting the video onto DVD's is another matter. If this is a one shot deal then take the tapes to a service agency and have them do it. Then all you need to worry about is if your DVD deck can play recordable DVD's. Newer ones can, including most of the sub-$100 models. Decks more than a couple years old are sometimes iffy.

Dr. Mordrid

[cjolley]

Thanks Doc!
I didn't even know such service co.s existed.
Any ideas on price?
Per tape, per DVD?

If I get a DVD burner for other reasons, would that change the equasion?

chuck

[Dr Mordrid]

Then you can do it yourself with a bit of practice and the right software. Uleads DVD MovieFactory 2 works nice here using its Disc-Direct feature.

If you have a decently fast system just plug in the cam to IEEE-1394 (need a firewire card for this: $20 or so), run DVDMF2 then use Disc-Direct to encode to MPEG and burn the DVD on the fly.

If you limit each blank to 1 DV tape (60 min) you can use a high enough bitrate to get nice quality.

Easiest way I know, but nothing fancy. DVDMF2 can do it fancier, but thats not as easy.

I've been using the Panasonic SW-9571 DVD-R/RW/RAM burner. It tracks very accurately and burns very few coasters. DVD-RAM is handy for file backups as it works more like a 4.7g removable HDD than a DVD/CD and can (supposedly) be written to 100,000 times vs. 10,000 for RW.

http://www.esbuy.com/suiipaswbadr1.html

Dr. Mordrid

[cjolley]

Doc,
Would an Athlon 1.7 do it?
Or would I be forced (forced I say!) to get a faster processor?

Sounds like the hadware and software wouldn't be very expensive outside of the camera it's self.

chuck

[Dr Mordrid]

Should do fine. I've used it with as low as an AthlonXP 1900+ and it went smoothly. What a faster CPU does is give you the headroom necessary to use a higher quality setting.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Doc's advice is good, but you may have to do the capture as DV AVI and then encode it separately in a second step if you want the best quality with your Athlon. Transcoding direct to high-quality MPG may not work, especially if you are short on memory (<512 Mb) or have a sluggish hard drive. This is not difficult but takes somewhat longer.

[Dr Mordrid]

HDD speed doesn't enter into it much these days.

The max bitrate for DVD is 9800 kbit/s (combined audio+video+subtitles), which translates to just 1.225 MB/s and most times you won't even be using that much. Almost any HDD made in the last few years can handle those bitrates during this process, even if fragmented.

The memory issue is valid and I would strongly recommend 512 mb in any system being set up for editing, even if it's just being done in MovieFactory 2.

Still; the major factor is the CPU as it's what does the realtime encoding. The quality setting you can use is directly proportional to the CPU's speed.

Dr. Mordrid

[cjolley]

I'll have to up my memory? w00t!, um...er.. I mean Dang!
chuck

[Dr Mordrid]

If that's the domestic situation I up my estimate to a Gig

Dr. Mordrid

[cjolley]

Well, considering the amount of money we are spending on this project, I feel I should at leat make a show of it.
chuck

PS I do have a 16gig stripe set I can run it against.

[Flying dutchman]

If you want something fast and simple, you might also consider a DVD camera. Cheapest and quickest way to get the result into your DVD player and saves a lot of HDD space. Get one that supports both DVDRAM and any flavor of DVDRW.

The media are very small which is pleasant on a trip. They are less sensitive to heat, cold, moist and fungus than tapes. Which is great if you plan to do something like a jungle trip.

Burner: LG 4040B. Simply because it reads everything, writes everything with a hole in it (CDR/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVDRAM). It even transparently reads "non-compliant" audio CD's.

[cjolley]

I looked at the DVD cameras, but the media seemed outlandishly pricy per minute of video.
Can the disks be obtained at a reasonable price?
Thanks,
Chuck

[Flying dutchman]

It's true, they are still expensive.

It's a bit like the expensive flash memory cards used in digital photo cameras. You buy only a few and regularly back them up onto cheaper media. No quality loss involved.