Hi,
I am looking for a camcorder for use underwater to replace my old Sony TRV-900 and am trying to decide between the Sony HDR-HC9 and the HDR-SR12.
There seems to be a consensus on internet video forums that tape offers higher quality than HDD because data is recorded without compression (like occurs with MPEG-2 that HDD's are supposed to use). Is this true or still true? Once tape is downloaded to a PC's hard drive is the data then compressed in MPEG2 like it is on the SR12's HD? I don't mind the tape format versus the convenience of a hard drive if the quality really is better.
The CMOS sensor on the SR12 (5.6 MP) is higher than that of the HC9 (3.2 MP) however, and I don't know if this is an offsetting factor to tape's alleged higher quality or this only has to do with the still camera role on the camcorder and nothing to do with video quality.
I have spoken with someone at a call center for Sony technical support and felt I got a bunch of double-talk. I have also spoken to two housing manufacturers who very very nice and helpful, but didn't know the answers to my questions.
I have read this post already: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/videography-marketplace/231408-hdr-hc9-hdr-sr12.html
and didn't see the answer to my questions, although the post about the HC9's manual wb capability was very useful.
Please help and thanks for your time.
M
I am looking for a camcorder for use underwater to replace my old Sony TRV-900 and am trying to decide between the Sony HDR-HC9 and the HDR-SR12.
There seems to be a consensus on internet video forums that tape offers higher quality than HDD because data is recorded without compression (like occurs with MPEG-2 that HDD's are supposed to use). Is this true or still true? Once tape is downloaded to a PC's hard drive is the data then compressed in MPEG2 like it is on the SR12's HD? I don't mind the tape format versus the convenience of a hard drive if the quality really is better.
The CMOS sensor on the SR12 (5.6 MP) is higher than that of the HC9 (3.2 MP) however, and I don't know if this is an offsetting factor to tape's alleged higher quality or this only has to do with the still camera role on the camcorder and nothing to do with video quality.
I have spoken with someone at a call center for Sony technical support and felt I got a bunch of double-talk. I have also spoken to two housing manufacturers who very very nice and helpful, but didn't know the answers to my questions.
I have read this post already: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/videography-marketplace/231408-hdr-hc9-hdr-sr12.html
and didn't see the answer to my questions, although the post about the HC9's manual wb capability was very useful.
Please help and thanks for your time.
M
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