IAC DISCUSSION FORUMS

Am I right in thinking that, as well as the device, one also need to buy the memory card(s)? It certainly looks like it does, and memory cards can be a more expensive way - one would need 16-32 GB for uncompressed AVI per hour. If on the other hand it had a built in hard drive - even a 60gig drive would be good - then it becomes an extremely attractive proposition.

Mike Shaw wrote: one would need 16-32 GB for uncompressed AVI per hour.

I thought DV was more like 13GB an hour?

uncompressed SD is more like 100GB an hour, but no-one would ever use that in practice!!

Back in February Col wrote: "As MiniDV is dying do not forget to copy your tapes into a medium you can access before your camcorder dies."

That sentence hit me hard when my Sony camcorder developed the dreaded stuck-door syndrome just as I was due to start uploading and subtitling a bunch of films. Thumping the camcorder hard on its base does usually make the mechanism work but it is only a matter of time before the camcorder fails completely.

Easy I thought - pop on to eBay and buy a reasonably recent MiniDV camcorder ... not that many about and darned few with DV in and out connections.

The shelves on my wall here have around 250 MiniDVs ... so my next task is to follow the advice of the Master and get copying. I hope to copy both to hard-disk and also as AVIs to DVDs. That allows me to reload them into computer for any future mods without losing quality whereas working from a normally burned DVD drops a quality level.

Most of what I do involves copying, editing and subtitling other people's work rather than shooting fresh material of my own.

Dave

I can understand the concern for you youngsters!!

I've found that most of my movies - short though they are - are too big as AVI files for 'ordnary' DVDs. I've just bought some dual layer DVDs, but the prospect of copying up to something like 300 miniDVs (not all are worth copying) is simply too daunting. I have three miniDV camcorders - two HD and one SD - and a Sony miniDV player (which isn't HD). The chances of all of them packing up in my lifetime is extremely remote. And I don't want to spare (waste?) the time it will take to copy them across as files.

Which is a long-winded way of saying, I'm not bothered. I shall redo all the family movies as part of my ever diminishing bucket list, and that will be that. miniDV will see me out, no problem.