According to many reviews of 2006 camcorders, miniDv is nearing it's End.
More and more DVD camcorders are being bought, and the future appears to be
Hard Drive recorders, and solid state after that.

Well all that may be true, but reviews also show that their demise is going
to a blaze of glory.
Needing a second hand held camcorder, I was surprised to see how cheap
Sony's top end HC96 was, and I bought one.

The picture is superb, even in-doors! And the audio has hardly any VCR noise
compared to my previous HC42. Now the HC42 was built like a battleship,
lot's of metal and quite heavy. Not ideal to dampen mechanical noise! The 96
is mainly plastic, which of course is to reduce cost, but it may also be
contributing to noise reduction. Most modern engineers will tell you that
plastic is no longer used just because it's cheaper. It often is the best
material to satisfy the engineering remit.

So there you have minidv on it's death door, not decaying before your eyes,
but shining out, to be replaced by more "modern" technology, which according
to most reviews, doesn't achieve the same quality as last years mindv, never
mind this!

John Russell wrote:
According to many reviews of 2006 camcorders, miniDv is nearing it's
End. More and more DVD camcorders are being bought, and the future
appears to be Hard Drive recorders, and solid state after that.

Joe Public is gullible. "Yes, sir, you want this latest technology. It's a
hard disk recorder, don't you know".

Well all that may be true, but reviews also show that their demise is
going to a blaze of glory.
Needing a second hand held camcorder, I was surprised to see how cheap
Sony's top end HC96 was, and I bought one.

The picture is superb, even in-doors!

Mainly due to its large sensor, compared to the lower end in the HC range.

And the audio has hardly any
VCR noise compared to my previous HC42.

But the motor noise annoys me. Not much gets onto the tape, but it's still a
pain; and I'm not the only one (judging by a quick Google) that dislikes
this Sony 'feature'.

Now the HC42 was built like
a battleship, lot's of metal and quite heavy. Not ideal to dampen
mechanical noise! The 96 is mainly plastic, which of course is to
reduce cost, but it may also be contributing to noise reduction. Most
modern engineers will tell you that plastic is no longer used just
because it's cheaper. It often is the best material to satisfy the
engineering remit.

Indeed. And plastic weighs much less too.

So there you have minidv on it's death door, not decaying before your
eyes, but shining out, to be replaced by more "modern" technology,
which according to most reviews, doesn't achieve the same quality as
last years mindv, never mind this!

It'd be a damn shame if MiniDV died to be overtaken by poorer performing
technology.

"Grumps" wrote in message
...

It'd be a damn shame if MiniDV died to be overtaken by poorer performing
technology.

VHS vs Beta

Vinyl vs CD vs MP3

It's bound to lose out eventually, because superior technology has no chance
if it's a gnat's knob more effort than the lesser technology.

I doubt it.

There are two main camps in the market:

1. People who don't care about the image quality, editability etc etc, who
are happy with point-and-shoot, let the camcorder make all the decisions
(the same people who watch TV with the sun shining directly on the screen,
with the contrast and brightness hopelessly wrong, and can't tell a
difference between a broadcast signal and a VHS copy of it) - don't get me
wrong - I wish I could be that way rather than the perfectionist I usually
am!

2. People who want ultimate control over the quality and settings, who
recognise that recording direct to any MPEG video format is just plain
stupid - don't get me wrong - it IS stupid!

Also, the miniDV cassette format is used in HDV units (a cheap, MPEG2
attempt at true HD but suffering from the inevitable editability issues)

And DV as a data format certainly won't disappear. In fact, the DV
specification supports MPEG2 as a payload. Also, there are high definition
DV formats - DVPro100 aka HDVPro aka other names - these are effectively
multiple DV codecs in parallel.

Dedicated hard drive recorders are still an expensive option - I think I'd
rather lug my laptop around and capture direct to it or an external hard
drive! Solid state? That's a very expensive option. For DV, you need
approx. 1GB for every 5 minutes of video.

John.

"John Russell" wrote in message
...
According to many reviews of 2006 camcorders, miniDv is nearing it's End.
More and more DVD camcorders are being bought, and the future appears to
be Hard Drive recorders, and solid state after that.

Well all that may be true, but reviews also show that their demise is
going to a blaze of glory.
Needing a second hand held camcorder, I was surprised to see how cheap
Sony's top end HC96 was, and I bought one.

The picture is superb, even in-doors! And the audio has hardly any VCR
noise compared to my previous HC42. Now the HC42 was built like a
battleship, lot's of metal and quite heavy. Not ideal to dampen mechanical
noise! The 96 is mainly plastic, which of course is to reduce cost, but it
may also be contributing to noise reduction. Most modern engineers will
tell you that plastic is no longer used just because it's cheaper. It
often is the best material to satisfy the engineering remit.

So there you have minidv on it's death door, not decaying before your
eyes, but shining out, to be replaced by more "modern" technology, which
according to most reviews, doesn't achieve the same quality as last years
mindv, never mind this!

In article ,
"G Hardy" wrote:

"Grumps" wrote in message
...

It'd be a damn shame if MiniDV died to be overtaken by poorer performing
technology.

VHS vs Beta

Vinyl vs CD vs MP3

It's bound to lose out eventually, because superior technology has no chance
if it's a gnat's knob more effort than the lesser technology.

Surely for anything even semi-serious DV has to be the way to go? I
don't care what they do at the cheap end but am worried at present by
the manufacturers flight from the mid-range units. I wanted to buy a
Canon MVX45i and settled for an MVX35i because I wanted something with
ease of use combined with easy manual overrides. It would be a shame if
there ended up being camcorders in the £200-£00 range and then nothing
until £1000.

-- tim

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
In article ,

Surely for anything even semi-serious DV has to be the way to go? I
don't care what they do at the cheap end but am worried at present by
the manufacturers flight from the mid-range units. I wanted to buy a
Canon MVX45i and settled for an MVX35i because I wanted something with
ease of use combined with easy manual overrides. It would be a shame if
there ended up being camcorders in the £200-£00 range and then nothing
until £1000.

Well I think you've answered your own question, in a way. There is a call
for cheaper consumer camcorders, and the technology for burning DVDs is
cheaper than MiniDV, and will continue to drop. Consumers will buy DVD
cameras as they are cheaper, expanding the gulf between the prices for
consumer units and semi-pro & up. More people who would have bought a
mid-range camera will fall on the cheaper side, reducing demand for DV tape
transports, driving up their cost, and increasing the gulf. There will come
a point where the tape mechanism is (proportional to a DVD writing
mechanism) the most expensive component in the camera, so the mid range will
disappear. The price of transports will go up as the price of the rest of
the technology (e.g. CCDs) comes down, meaning that the four-digit cameras
will stay four-digit, but won't deviate by much.

Another potential driving force behind the prices coming down so much is the
fact that DVD is supposed to be a doomed technology. With the next
generation of storage on the horizon, it makes sense for camera
manufacturers to shift as many units as they can right now, so that in the
near future they will be able to sell a new camera to consumers who suddenly
find their shiny DVD-writing camera is obsolete.

"G Hardy" wrote in message
...
"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
In article ,

Surely for anything even semi-serious DV has to be the way to go? I
don't care what they do at the cheap end but am worried at present by
the manufacturers flight from the mid-range units. I wanted to buy a
Canon MVX45i and settled for an MVX35i because I wanted something with
ease of use combined with easy manual overrides. It would be a shame if
there ended up being camcorders in the £200-£00 range and then nothing
until £1000.

Well I think you've answered your own question, in a way. There is a call
for cheaper consumer camcorders, and the technology for burning DVDs is
cheaper than MiniDV, and will continue to drop. Consumers will buy DVD
cameras as they are cheaper, expanding the gulf between the prices for
consumer units and semi-pro & up. More people who would have bought a
mid-range camera will fall on the cheaper side, reducing demand for DV
tape
transports, driving up their cost, and increasing the gulf. There will
come
a point where the tape mechanism is (proportional to a DVD writing
mechanism) the most expensive component in the camera, so the mid range
will
disappear. The price of transports will go up as the price of the rest of
the technology (e.g. CCDs) comes down, meaning that the four-digit cameras
will stay four-digit, but won't deviate by much.

Another potential driving force behind the prices coming down so much is
the
fact that DVD is supposed to be a doomed technology. With the next
generation of storage on the horizon, it makes sense for camera
manufacturers to shift as many units as they can right now, so that in the
near future they will be able to sell a new camera to consumers who
suddenly
find their shiny DVD-writing camera is obsolete.


I don't think those buying DVD camcorders are doing so because they think
it's bin end bargain of outdated equipment. Many people will not be rushing
to HDTV and then wanting camcorders to match. The majority of home camcorder
users have DVD players and like the convenience of popping their recordings
straight in. I can understand that. I have DV camcorders but I edit the
video for DVD on PC. I don't like the whole "wire up your camcorder to the
TV" thing, it's so inconvenient. But equally I don't want to see DVD
recordings with the quality of a web broadcast, hence my choice to use DV.

"John Miller" wrote in message
...
I doubt it.

There are two main camps in the market:

1. People who don't care about the image quality, editability etc etc,
who are happy with point-and-shoot, let the camcorder make all the
decisions (the same people who watch TV with the sun shining directly on
the screen, with the contrast and brightness hopelessly wrong, and can't
tell a difference between a broadcast signal and a VHS copy of it) - don't
get me wrong - I wish I could be that way rather than the perfectionist I
usually am!

2. People who want ultimate control over the quality and settings, who
recognise that recording direct to any MPEG video format is just plain
stupid - don't get me wrong - it IS stupid!

Also, the miniDV cassette format is used in HDV units (a cheap, MPEG2
attempt at true HD but suffering from the inevitable editability issues)

And DV as a data format certainly won't disappear. In fact, the DV
specification supports MPEG2 as a payload. Also, there are high
definition DV formats - DVPro100 aka HDVPro aka other names - these are
effectively multiple DV codecs in parallel.

Dedicated hard drive recorders are still an expensive option - I think I'd
rather lug my laptop around and capture direct to it or an external hard
drive! Solid state? That's a very expensive option. For DV, you need
approx. 1GB for every 5 minutes of video.

John.

The bottom end, by that I mean the "handycam" type camcorder, is shifting
away from DV because the majority of those who might buy them are going DVD.

The questions is the demand for DV camcorders by pro-ams big enough to
sustain any hike in cost resulting from the collapse in sales at the bottom
end? Surely this is the group most likely to shift to HD anyway? And these
camcorders use incremental MPEG2 when they do use minidv tapes, so it would
be the end of DV video on minidv tapes.

"John Russell" wrote in message
...

"G Hardy" wrote in message
...
"Tim Streater" wrote in message
...
In article ,

Surely for anything even semi-serious DV has to be the way to go? I
don't care what they do at the cheap end but am worried at present by
the manufacturers flight from the mid-range units. I wanted to buy a
Canon MVX45i and settled for an MVX35i because I wanted something with
ease of use combined with easy manual overrides. It would be a shame if
there ended up being camcorders in the £200-£00 range and then nothing
until £1000.

Well I think you've answered your own question, in a way. There is a
call
for cheaper consumer camcorders, and the technology for burning DVDs is
cheaper than MiniDV, and will continue to drop. Consumers will buy DVD
cameras as they are cheaper, expanding the gulf between the prices for
consumer units and semi-pro & up. More people who would have bought a
mid-range camera will fall on the cheaper side, reducing demand for DV
tape
transports, driving up their cost, and increasing the gulf. There will
come
a point where the tape mechanism is (proportional to a DVD writing
mechanism) the most expensive component in the camera, so the mid range
will
disappear. The price of transports will go up as the price of the rest
of
the technology (e.g. CCDs) comes down, meaning that the four-digit
cameras
will stay four-digit, but won't deviate by much.

Another potential driving force behind the prices coming down so much is
the
fact that DVD is supposed to be a doomed technology. With the next
generation of storage on the horizon, it makes sense for camera
manufacturers to shift as many units as they can right now, so that in
the
near future they will be able to sell a new camera to consumers who
suddenly
find their shiny DVD-writing camera is obsolete.


I don't think those buying DVD camcorders are doing so because they think
it's bin end bargain of outdated equipment. Many people will not be
rushing
to HDTV and then wanting camcorders to match. The majority of home
camcorder
users have DVD players and like the convenience of popping their
recordings
straight in. I can understand that. I have DV camcorders but I edit the
video for DVD on PC. I don't like the whole "wire up your camcorder to the
TV" thing, it's so inconvenient. But equally I don't want to see DVD
recordings with the quality of a web broadcast, hence my choice to use
DV.

Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that the DVD Camcorder owner is looking for
the "bin end". It's just that prices will continue to come down, so the DVD
buyer will get more for their money.

Broadly speaking, there are three categories of camcorder buyer: The one who
wants to record the kids match/school plays/niece's wedding - then just dump
the lot onto a medium he can use in his TV with no editing or minimal
editing (consumer cameras). Then there's the one who does some editing and
charges for the privilege - the wedding videographer, event video etc
(semi-pro). Then there's the broadcast guy with a ghetto blaster of a
camera, a crew, and a dedicated suite or subcontractor for each aspect of
his work (broadcast).

There are people who fit in between even those categories (and those
somewhere between "Mr No-Edit" and "Mr Paid-to-Edit" are the ones we're
really considering here - we'll call him the "casual editor") but those are
the broad categories.

The guy who just wants to dump his footage onto a watchable medium will love
DVD camcorders for many reason, not least being the ability to whip the
recording out of the camera and use it immediately on his TV. No wiring up
the camera to the TV needed. The quality will better than the guy who shoots
MiniDV then converts to DVD because there's no intermediate format. The
video goes straight from the CCD to the final format via a hardware encoder.
Even duplication has got easier. No need to capture.

The guy who pays a grand for a top-end MiniDV camera for semi-pro work will
stick with that for its inherent archival potential and the ability to edit
without (further) loss. As I said before, the price of these cameras won't
change much because the increasing cost of the medium is offset by drops in
the price of the rest of the camera's components.

It's the guy between the two who will suffer - the one who wants to make a
nice film for his niece, or edit the school play so they can sell it, or
whatever. It will not be economically viable for DV-based cameras to compete
with DVD, so he'll either have to go to the cheaper, less editable DVD
format, or fork out more for DV cameras. It's not about bargain bins.

We're going to lose the "casual editing" market just because the DVD writing
transport is cheaper. When I bought my first DVD writer, six years ago, it
cost me £550 for DVD-R SL 2X . I just replaced its replacement for £30
giving me DVD+/-R and RAM, SL/DL 16X.

"John Russell" wrote in message
...

end? Surely this is the group most likely to shift to HD anyway? And these
camcorders use incremental MPEG2 when they do use minidv tapes, so it
would be the end of DV video on minidv tapes.

I don't quite follow. Do you mean that the MPEG2 is recorded as I-frames
only - no motion compensation etc?

If so, there's little difference between the bandwidth required for that and
the high-def variants of DV. HDV camcorders achieve their high-def on
miniDV by recording in the usual MPEG2 way - i.e., I, B and P frames. Don't
they?

John.