HDD vs Mini DV

omar_

omar_

Well-known member
Do you think cameras with hard drive recording capacity are going to replace Mini DV tapes? Will Mini DV tapes become obsolete soon?

And how do you think this will play out with editing workflow?
 
Yes miniDV tapes will become obsolete. And no, it's not going to be hard disk recorders that replace it, it's likely going to be solid state.

We're in a transitionary period, there are many tapeless options out there. There's hard disk, mini-DVD optical disk, and solid state (SD cards, Memory Stick, etc). If the still-camera market is to be taken as a forerunner, the future is all solid state; still cameras tried optical disc and that flopped; they tried hard disk and that flopped, and now they're all solid state.

AVC-HD should hit hard this fall; Sony and Panasonic have AVC-HD models on the market right now and Canon will join the fray this fall. AVC-HD is the new tapeless format and can record on all of those media.

And how do you think this will play out with editing workflow?
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It's going to be a bit of a teething phase, followed by a much superior (as in, *vastly* superior) workflow. Instead of having tapes and capturing and timecode breaks and clogged heads and tape incompatibilities, you're going to plug your hard disk camera into the computer and edit the footage. Or pull the memory card out of your solid state camcorder, plug it in the computer, and edit. Or pull the mini-DVD out of your DVD camcorder, put it in your computer's DVD drive, and copy the files off of the disc and onto your hard disk. No more capturing, no more logging, no more marking "in" and "out" points, no more dropped frames, no more tape dropouts.
 
Barry_Green said:
Yes miniDV tapes will become obsolete. And no, it's not going to be hard disk recorders that replace it, it's likely going to be solid state.
Click to expand...

So if you were going to get a consumer camera for capturing life events which type of camera would you get that would stand some test of time?

And on a professional level what would you recommend for a good step up from the DVX along the lines of the solid state recording that would stand some test of time?
 
Well, the thing is, once you go tapeless it's just data, so as long as you move your data to a current media it's going to live forever.

AVC-HD is going to be the successor and heir to miniDV. There's no great AVC-HD camera out yet though; just a few consumer palmcorders. By the end of the year maybe something awesome will be out.
 
The thing about tape is that if your hard disk crashes you still have the option of a back up on tape. you can store you footage on dvd and soon on blue ray, but if you get a scratch on the the disk or you happen to put the disk in a bag and the disk gets bent or warped. All this technolgy is great but with it brings new problems and solutions. I will be sticking to mini dv for some time yet.
I know i have to develope my craft further before i can warrant an upgrade.
 
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