Camcorder Reviews

3 Responses

1. Little Dog says:

   February 9, 2010 at 11:54 pm

   You have a few options – none of them are inexpensive, but provide insight to the lack of an affordable or well defined process flow related to flash memory and hard disc drive based camcorders.
   1) Leave the video on the memory cards. This is expensive and flash memory’s shelf life for long term storage is not well documented. Also, having the video in one place – on volatile memory – is very risky. This option is not recommended – but is an option.
   2) Use some sort of external hard drive set up and copy the video from the memory card to that external hard drive. Because computer hard disc drives are electro-mechanical, using a single hard drive is also risky. Some sort of RAID using multiple drives (like some of the newer consumer NAS implementations use) is recommended. Because consumer-grade high definition camcorders use AVCHD to produce very highly compressed MTS files, actually using these files can be a challenge after they are copied form the memory cards. You can either decompress the video with a video editor and save as a more useful file type (like an h.264 high definition file that is more easily computer readable), convert the video to something non-AVCHD (which could result in the video no longer being high definition) or leave the video in its MTS file type and convert only as you need it.
   3) Another option is to use optical discs – but they are relatively delicate, so relying ONLY on optical disc can be dangerous for long term “archive” storage. The MTS files can be copied to optical disc and played back on a PS3 or BluRay player connected to a HDTV (if you have a PS3 or BluRay player… these “data DVDs” will not play in a regular DVD player. You do not need a BluRay burner – but the BluRay discs hold a LOT more data than the regular single layer and double layer DVDs…). Multiple optical discs is safer – if one copy is kept “offsite” and separate from the set at home.
   4) In any case, you should consider editing the video and make computer readable versions that can be stored in one or more of the methods mentioned above. As well, if the videos are relatively short, there are online video sharing sites that have different limitations on file size or video length that can provide password protection so only those you allow can have access – this helps keep the videos “personal” and not published to the world. For the most part, the “high definition” is downsampled to 720p and converted for flash use, so future editing of high definition video will be difficult unless you keep the original, somehow. There are also some online storage services, but video files are large, so be sure to research any size limitations or requirements – and consider investigating the financial stability of the company. It would be a bummer if you uploaded a BUNCH of video (or other data) only to watch the company shut down and your data back-up become unavailable.
   5) There are some permutations to the local hard drive storage option – which includes using a “media center” device, like an AppleTV or similar equipment. This also presumes some sort of conversion of the files so the media center can use them and playback on a regular or HD TV. But backup of all this data also still needs to be considered.
   + + + + +
   Since I specifically pointed out, “lack of an affordable or well defined process flow related to flash memory and hard disc drive based camcorders” in the first paragraph, I realize what follows will not help you much, but I am compelled to share this – because there is an affordable, well defined process… With miniDV tape.
   If your high definition digital camcorder recorded video to miniDV tape, you would merely lock the miniDV tape and keep that inexpensive (about $3 per tape in $24.99 8-packs from frys – and even cheaper in quantities from tapestockonline), long shelf life, high definition video on the tape and not worry about re-use. A single 60 minute regular miniDV tape can hold up to 63 minutes of high definition video – and when imported to a computer, that 60+ minutes of HDV format video uses 44 gig of computer hard drive space. This affordability factor, coupled with HDV being much less compressed than AVCHD are only two of MANY reasons the pros continue to use miniDV tape. There are lots more advantages, but providing them to you only helps if you decide to use miniDV tape and that well defined process flow.
2. J I H says:

   February 10, 2010 at 2:50 am

   The cheapest & simplest way is to get a card reader, (Though your computer MAY have one built in already). Put the card into the reader & copy the contents to your computer’s hard drive into any folder you choose. When you have done this then just delete the card & re-use it.
3. snowwill says:

   February 10, 2010 at 4:03 am

   I bought a usb 500G passport hard drive (around 100.00) for this purpose, I can hook the hard drive to my pc and open the drive and play the videos on my pc. Periodically I edit the videos together and put them on a DVD.