I would appreciate any input on my situation. I have an HVX200. I am recording church services that last about an hour and 45 minutes so I use 720P/30PN settings to fit on a 64GB P2 card. I copy the contents file onto an external drive for use in PP CS6. In CS6, I add in graphics and create separate clips of the preaching & the music. The encoded files get uploaded to Vimeo for the church website . I also export for use on the local cable access channel. I would like to add a second camera shot and use the multi-cam edit feature in CS6. I am very limited on how much I can spend on a second camera. The church can't help financially at this time and my budget can't contribute much either. I have much to learn in the way of videography and can't contribute much more financially but have a real desire to make the pastor's message available for those who can't get to church services, with a quality that adds to the message rather than takes away from it.
I found that the wife's Olympus SZ-10 point & shoot does a decent job as a second camera except that the auto focus is always trying to focus in on something else. My pastor doesn't stand still much so there are plenty of other things to focus on. I don't like it's 29 minute clip limitations, especially since the preaching is usually and hour & 5 minutes instead of 55 minutes. I create 2 separate multi-cam sequences out of the 2 - 29 minute preaching clips and fill the gap with the extended HVX video. The Olympus captures video on an SDHC card in 1280 x 720 MP4 format. This works great with the 720P/30PN video from the HVX and is ready almost instantly for use in editing.
To make this long story a bit shorter, I am looking at options under $1000. Another HVX200 with even 48GB of P2 storage puts costs higher than I can go now. I borrowed a fairly new $500 Canon HD camcorder but it didn't do well under the lighting we have and didn't color correct well on camera and in Premiere. The Olympus isn't perfect as far as color matching but is better than the Canon HD camcorder. Any thoughts on something like the Panasonic HDSLR GH2 or similar? I would still have file size limitations but from what I have read, it looks like the GH2 doesn't drop frames between file clips like my little Olympus does. The Canon XH A1 mini-dv cameras are going cheap so I am considering that option as well. I am assuming, possibly incorrectly that most small HD camcorders are either going to have trouble under our lighting conditions (metal halide?) or record in a format that will need to be encoded for use in the PP CS6 multi-cam editing. My experience has been that encoding a 60 or 90 minute video file would take longer than capturing a similar length tape. This why I considered going back to a good quality mini-dv camera.
I may have left something out or there may be a better place to post this question. Again, any feedback would be considered and appreciated.
I found that the wife's Olympus SZ-10 point & shoot does a decent job as a second camera except that the auto focus is always trying to focus in on something else. My pastor doesn't stand still much so there are plenty of other things to focus on. I don't like it's 29 minute clip limitations, especially since the preaching is usually and hour & 5 minutes instead of 55 minutes. I create 2 separate multi-cam sequences out of the 2 - 29 minute preaching clips and fill the gap with the extended HVX video. The Olympus captures video on an SDHC card in 1280 x 720 MP4 format. This works great with the 720P/30PN video from the HVX and is ready almost instantly for use in editing.
To make this long story a bit shorter, I am looking at options under $1000. Another HVX200 with even 48GB of P2 storage puts costs higher than I can go now. I borrowed a fairly new $500 Canon HD camcorder but it didn't do well under the lighting we have and didn't color correct well on camera and in Premiere. The Olympus isn't perfect as far as color matching but is better than the Canon HD camcorder. Any thoughts on something like the Panasonic HDSLR GH2 or similar? I would still have file size limitations but from what I have read, it looks like the GH2 doesn't drop frames between file clips like my little Olympus does. The Canon XH A1 mini-dv cameras are going cheap so I am considering that option as well. I am assuming, possibly incorrectly that most small HD camcorders are either going to have trouble under our lighting conditions (metal halide?) or record in a format that will need to be encoded for use in the PP CS6 multi-cam editing. My experience has been that encoding a 60 or 90 minute video file would take longer than capturing a similar length tape. This why I considered going back to a good quality mini-dv camera.
I may have left something out or there may be a better place to post this question. Again, any feedback would be considered and appreciated.
