Quote from: Timmy B on December 22, 2008, 05:41:35 PM
Don't those Mino cameras also lack any ability to zoom?
Yes, zooming is accomplished by walking forward. (It has digital zoom, but it looks like garbage. Blurry garbage.)
OK A-holes. It's fixed. Enjoy the orange links, because I have no fucking idea how to change them. I basically learned scripting in four days to fix this damned thing. - Andy
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Show posts MenuQuote from: Timmy B on December 22, 2008, 05:41:35 PM
Don't those Mino cameras also lack any ability to zoom?
Quote from: Furious George on December 22, 2008, 02:48:50 PMQuote from: PenFoe on December 22, 2008, 01:10:06 PMQuote from: PiniellaTailOnTheDonkey on December 21, 2008, 11:56:38 PMQuote from: Furious George on December 21, 2008, 07:05:42 PM
I've heard all sorts of great things about the Flip cameras.
The biggest downside, though, seems to be the lack of ability to expand beyond the 60 minute limit of the built-in memory.
This probably isn't a big deal for day-to-day use, but if you're taking it on a trip, that means either worrying about shooting too much and running out of space or packing along a laptop to offload your video on the go.
And battery life is a factor, too (it can only be charged via the USB port). So it has its limitations, thus it won't be great for everything, but one hour of video can last for most events.
So is 60 minutes all I'm getting from a FLIP CAMERA?
Can I add in a card to extend/increase the memory?
What part of "lack of ability to expand beyond the 60 minute limit of the built-in memory" do you not understand, dammit?
In other words: yes to the 60 minute limit, no to the ability to add memory via a flash card.
Quote from: Furious George on December 21, 2008, 07:05:42 PM
I've heard all sorts of great things about the Flip cameras.
The biggest downside, though, seems to be the lack of ability to expand beyond the 60 minute limit of the built-in memory.
This probably isn't a big deal for day-to-day use, but if you're taking it on a trip, that means either worrying about shooting too much and running out of space or packing along a laptop to offload your video on the go.
Quote from: Timmy B on December 21, 2008, 05:01:16 PMQuote from: PenFoe on December 21, 2008, 01:57:14 PM
DPD.
As a soon-to-be-father, figure it's time to get a camcorder.
Looks like the best ones are HD with a 30-60GB hard drive, pricing ranging from $650-$1200 or so.
That's a little steep, so the questions:
1. Is it definitely worth it to get HD?
2. Do I need one that has such a large hard drive, or are the mini-DVDs still viable options?
3. Is this fairly new technology and I can expect to see prices decrease in the immediate future (2-3 months?)
First off, assuming that you're looking for a small model with a flip-out screen, I'd avoid the hard drive-based camcorders. There are many, many camcorders on the market that record straight to an SD or SDHC flash memory card. Really, the fewer moving parts you can get in a camcorder, the better -- with a hard drive, you always have the risk of a platter or spindle going bad, or data getting corrupted. Depending on the camera, you can get two hours of recording onto a single card -- or even more. And flash memory is ridiculously cheap nowadays, too.
As for high-def versus standard-def, a lot of that depends on your computer specs. Modern computers can handle native HD video editing a lot better than they could even two years ago, but it can still be a dog. My 1-year-old MacBook Pro, with a Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM, can still dog sometimes when working with HD video. Just about any jalopy on the market can handle SD video editing, and you still have to consider the delivery method: Sure, you can capture and edit HD video, but do you have an HDTV? Are you going to be putting HD-resolution videos on the Web? Are you writing to Blu-ray Disc?
As for price reductions, I don't think so. Memory prices and CCD / CMOS prices are largely stabilized, for the time being. Prices should be stable for the next 8 - 12 months or so, I would think.
For an SD camcorder, I'd recommend the Canon FS100, FS10 (same as the 100, but with onboard memory in addition to memory cards) or the JVC GZ-MS100 (which has better video quality than those Canons, but a bit of a clunkier interface). All of those are in the $300-$550 range.
For HD, you cannot go wrong with Canon's Vixia HF100. We have two of them in our office for when interns are sent out to grab footage of this, that or the other, and at about $600 each from B&H Photo-Video, they've been ridiculously good investments.
Also, as another note, keep in mind that digital video can get very big very quickly. With a standard tape-based camcorder recording to MiniDV tapes, an hour of raw video is 13.8 GB. Newer compression types with the drive- and memory card-based camcorders reduce that size significantly for the actual capturing / recording, but once they're transferred to a computer and an editing program, the filesizes balloon again. It's a good idea to have an external hard drive or two that are dedicated exclusively to video work. (Ideally, you want one drive for your raw video, and another drive for your scratch / rendering files, to increase efficiency.)
Don't buy a camera from a brick-and-mortar store. Buy from B&H (www.bhphotovideo.com) or Full Compass (www.fullcompass.com). Adorama is good, too.
QuoteMany of you think I make too much out of clubhouse chemistry, but Kerry Wood was one of the leaders of this team, someone others, not just pitchers, looked up to. Who's the face of the franchise now? Bat-breaking Carlos Zambrano? Quiet Derrek Lee? Maybe Geovany Soto could step up in a couple of years, but it seems a bit early for that. I'm very sad that Wood, who is one of my favorite players, is going to be in another uniform next year -- and the team 90 miles to the north in Milwaukee is looking for a closer and I'm guessing Doug Melvin would love nothing more than to stick it to the Cubs by offering Wood a three or four year deal.