HDD UW video

[AdTravels]

High all,

looking for some advice on a subject I know little about. I've recently been asked to look into a uw video system for my Dive Schhol. Initialy a looked at a few Mini DV cameras as I know those, ,however a friend sugested HDD cameras. Tried a bit of reaserch but only found reviews on specific models not on the pros & cons... I can guess at various pros but are there any significant cons?

Any help you can throw my way would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ad

 

[DaFireMedic]

High all,

looking for some advice on a subject I know little about. I've recently been asked to look into a uw video system for my Dive Schhol. Initialy a looked at a few Mini DV cameras as I know those, ,however a friend sugested HDD cameras. Tried a bit of reaserch but only found reviews on specific models not on the pros & cons... I can guess at various pros but are there any significant cons?

Any help you can throw my way would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ad

From my experiences on land (with regards to HDD camcorders):

Pros:
Easy to transfer files (drag and drop rather than real time capture, a big time saver)
No tapes to buy (they are pretty cheap anyway, but still)

Cons:
The hard drives tend to be less reliable than MiniDV tape camcorders (this one is more from research prior to buying my camcorder. I have never owned an HDD camcorder, although I have friends that do)

Video quality tends to be lower due to the compression codecs used (although that is theoretically changing with AVCHD, but not yet and software editing support is still slow in coming)

You can't change tapes. When you fill the hard drive, thats it. You must stop shooting until the files are transferred or deleted.

You flood a HDD camcorder on a trip, you lose all the video you shot that was still on the hard drive. (although if I just flooded my $1100 camcorder, the last thing I'm worried about is my footage).

Right now, MiniDV tape camcorders (in general) still offer better image quality than HDD camcorders, so thats what I'm staying with for the time being. But that will eventually change, then I'll make the switch. The big advantage to HDD remains the ease of getting your video into the computer. For a school type setting, that might be a real big advantage.

 

[AdTravels]

DaFireMedic

Thanks for the input.... yeh the codec issue I hadn't thought of...good point.
the thing I'm thinking about is the fact that this camera will be used nearly daily to video dive groups and students for sale, therefore the big factor I'm looking at is the way heads on minidv will be exposed daily to the lovely salty air of my island (this was one of the main factors for going HDD- you are lucky if a dvd player lasts 2 years out here)
The big question is quality... how bad is it with HDD... any further appreciated
Ad