Sony HVR-Z5U camcorder.

[hool10]

I became a member of my local access tv station to record Board of Health meetings for an important issue (residents successfully pushed out a company that was really harming our health with toxic chemicals going airborne). It was only $20 for an entire year as well! Well anyways we were using 9 year old cameras that were digital and were using mini-DV tapes. I actually recorded a very long 3+ hour that must be painfully digitized into FinalCut Pro on Saturday. :frown:

So now the station got at least three of these kick-ass camcorders which can't be found at your local Best Buy (well maybe). It can record up to 1080i, do slo-mo, accepts memory stick pro duo, mini-dv, SD cards, bigger zoom, wider shot for widescreen, HDMI output. The camcorder alone is worth $4,599. What can it do you might ask?

Slow motion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQJFR_g2ZEw

720p video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpxRwCPYf4o

Promo #1 (in related video's there are the other parts):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUFOWbnlCEM

You really don't have to pay for a $6,000+ camera, you just may have a really lucky local access tv station! Yesterday there was a director who really knew cameras and was editing. He had a nerd orgasm when a employee of the station showed it to him.

More info here: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665801264

 

[No Limit]

I don't know a damn thing about cameras but that's pretty awesome when you get access to something that is professional. Enjoy the shit out of that for as long as you can and save everything you do, it will look good on a resume.

 

[Asus]

That's a pretty nice camera. I had researched the HD cameras in the $1000 area but I'm sure that has a lot more options and a lot better lens etc.

I actually recorded a very long 3+ hour that must be painfully digitized into FinalCut Pro on Saturday

Isn't DV already digital? Do you mean convert to DVD or something? (DV -> MPEG2-> DVD)

 

[Viperidae]

You have to stream DV tape onto a harddrive in realtime before you can edit it.

 

[Asus]

Yeah, i was just wondering what he meant by digitizing. I know it will take a while as it plays back the tape at a fixed speed rather than a file transfer on a HDD. That's the limitation of a signal on a tape.

Edit: cause if he is talking capture time then that's 3hrs+. If by digitizing he meant doing some additional thing like converting to dvd then that's almost double the time. D:

 

[VirusType2]

I've got a Sony DV tape camcorder. It was $500. It sucks because I bought it before HD was 'announced', so the resolution is SD. So it's probably not worth shit anymore, considering you can buy cheap HD video cameras for like $30 now.

I got it for making porn.

 

[hool10]

Yeah, i was just wondering what he meant by digitizing. I know it will take a while as it plays back the tape at a fixed speed rather than a file transfer on a HDD. That's the limitation of a signal on a tape.

Edit: cause if he is talking capture time then that's 3hrs+. If by digitizing he meant doing some additional thing like converting to dvd then that's almost double the time. D:

Lol, yup. So I gotta get the footage in real-time from the mini-DV tape onto an external HD, get extremely angry that I have to work with a Mac computer, then put it onto a DVD in real time. Overall we are are looking at least 7 hours and that doesn't include editing. Probably next Saturday I will be putting it onto a DVD.

 

[Viperidae]

then put it onto a DVD in real time.

Huuuuuh? Why? The writing phase is long yes, but it's not real time...

 

[Asus]

Probably the convert time (DV -> Mpeg2) plus the 20min burn time (file-> disc).

 

[Viperidae]

He made it sound like it had to be done in real time. Likely, a 3 hour movie will take longer.