Re: Better videos.

Don,

Your advice is excellent, except this last part is misleading.

[Don Hutcheson] "And if you buy a Sony DVCAM format camera, shoot in DVCAM all the time. DVCAM is superior to MiniDV (except in HD) because it lays down a wider video and audio track. A larger original file won't suffer as much degradation as it is manipulated and compressed in post (editing)."

The video layed down to DVCAM tape and to miniDV tape is identical and once it is ingested into the NLE, performs in post identically. DVCAM tape is manufactured to more rigid standards and moves through the tape mechanism more rapidly, thus separating the elements of the DV signal more, so that they are less prone to drop out and other problems should the tape path be slightly out of whack or dirty. The same size DVCAM tape as MiniDV will have less running time because it goes through the tape mechanism faster. DVCPRO25 tape goes even further along the robustness continuum by running even faster with a better tape forumlation than DVCAM with a cooresponding decrease in running time but only for camcorders capable of shooting this tape.

Practical considerations inform your decision about which tape forulation and format to use. It's very hard to justify using DVCAM tape, which is 3 times the cost of miniDV for 2/3rds the running time, for a hobbiest project that isn't going to significantly suffer if there's the possibility of a little gitch here and there. It's just as hard to justify using miniDV tape to save a few bucks for a commercial spot where you look like a fool if the good take has a glitch in it. Match the tape cost and quality to the job, but you aren't giving up any imaging quality by using miniDV and not DVCAM, just increasing the slight chance of a problem. DVCAM tape should hold up better over time than MiniDV for archival purposes, and if you decide that you don't need to keep what's on it, is more reliable for reuse in non-critical applications.

Ron Shook
Shoulder-High Eye Productions
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