Desipio Message Board

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.)

Quote from: Furious George on December 22, 2008, 02:48:50 PM

Quote from: PenFoe on December 22, 2008, 01:10:06 PM

Quote from: PiniellaTailOnTheDonkey on December 21, 2008, 11:56:38 PM

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.

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.

Memory expansion is limited only by your ability to purchase more Flip cameras.  I've never shot 60 minutes continuously, but I have gone weeks between charging, shooting 5-min clips here and there.  The company claims "up to" 2 hours for the Mino HD, "up to" 4 hours for the Mino. 

CNet MinoHD
CNet Mino

This might end up being overkill, but just in case it's helpful.
Flip Mino vs Flip Ultra comparison
Flip Ultra vs Kodak Zi6
Flip Mino vs Kodak Zi6 (recommends the Flip)

Saved the most useful for last:
Direct comparison of video quality between Flip MinoHD and Kodak Zi6.  Flip wins in a blowout.

In the last one, he mentions that if you want to shoot events (weddings, etc) you will want the Kodak.  The video quality will be worse, but if it has more storage and more battery, at least the footage of Minute 61+ will actually, you know, exist.

EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, I used my Flip to shoot a baseball game from my spot in the press box.  It wasn't running the whole time, but I did have it prepared for any highlights.  It still had enough juice at the end of the three-hour ballgame, but only if I made sure to charge it up completely before the game.  I had clips as long as 20 minutes on there, then I would stop between innings, delete the last clip if nothing good happened in that half-inning, and restart it at the beginning of the next half-inning.  And like all Lithium-Ion batteries, eventually, the battery capacity will decrease below a full hour.  That depends on how frequently it's used, how many times it's been charged, blah blah blah.  Since I used mine every single day for like three months, by the end, it couldn't get through the whole time, it would need about a 5 or 10 minute boost to finish the ballgame.

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.

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.

Quote from: Timmy B on December 21, 2008, 05:01:16 PM

Quote 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.

I would echo all of that, with this addition.  If all you're going to be doing is shooting home videos of precious moments, and anything more would be overkill, I'd give the Flip Mino a try.  It has competitors that are also worth a look, but I own a Flip Mino and like it.  (They came out with the HD model like a month after I bought mine.)  Plus, it seems to win every review I've read - especially in the audio department.  I was a broadcast journalism major so I'm used to working with ridiculously nice cameras, but for family and personal matters, the Flip is fine.

They also make accessories for it that could be cool for family matters...namely, an underwater case.  It's designed for the larger Flip Ultra so I had to modify it, but I'd expect them to make a Mino version of it fairly soon.



And you didn't mention this, but I'd recommend a Mac with Final Cut Express or Pro for editing.

Thankfully, Pollyellon has explained why this is so awful.

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.

Does he mean the "bat-breaking" Carlos Zambrano who actually showed up for the playoffs that were cancelled?  Yeah, we definitely can't have him as The Face of the Franchise.  That hothead.