It would be helpful for this discussion if you actually knew what you were talking about. First of all, you're completely wrong about converting MPEG-4 to MPEG2. Do you even know how compression algorythms work? Apparently not. You make it sound like it's similar to compressing a .sit file. Well, it isn't. When you create an MPEG file (2 or 4) what happens is that it takes each frame, compares them to the previous and following frames, figures out what is the same and averages them. You LOSE information. You can never get it back.
You cannot simply "uncompress" an MPEG file. Same thing with a JPEG. When you open it in Photoshop you aren't "uncompressing" it. However everytime you save it, you put it through the formula again, losing quality. With MPEG files, everytime you save them, you again lose quality.
If you were saving MPEG-4 on tape, it wouldn't even be of a high enough quality to edit.
Now, what next. Okay - you mention tape being dead. Where on EARTH do you get that from? First of all, DV standard quality video is MUCH higher than MPEG2 OR MPEG4. DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme, where MPEG 2 can be as bad as 4:8:4!!!! Sure, you can keep a ton of MPEG 4 video on your harddrive, but you can't play it on your television in that format.
The only thing you have a valid point on is that you can transfer MPEG 4 files faster than you can capture DV footage. DV does it in real time and has timecode allowing you to capture with in and out points capturing only EXACTLY what you want. MPEG4 has no embedded timecode. Of course, once you import DV, you can move it around nicely, just as quickly as any other file.
Also, how is tape dead? DV, which is digital, and is essentially 1's and 0's just like hard drive, just arranged differently, is an awful lot cheaper! I can buy 20 DV tapes for $60.00, and get the equivilent of over 200GB of storage space. That would cost me what - $300 in hard drives?
VHS is essentially dead, but it's analoge and that's the only reason. DV will be here for a LONG time. It will soon even surpass film as the chosen medium for video production.
you are right about wearing down heads on your camera. It doesn't "eat" away at the mechanism, but what happens is that eventually, the magnet becomes weaker which translates into less accurate recording and loss of richness and quality.
Now, you talk about the speed of accessing video on your camera. Even though there are very few applications for needing to go through tons of tape on a camera, let's think about it. With my camera (a Canon XL1S) I can jump between preset scenes in very little time. I can rewind the whole tape in less than a minute!
Just how fast do you think a 20GB hard drive will be in that size footprint. It will be slower than 4200RPM I can assure you of that! Chances are it won't be much faster than tape.
You are right when you say that "the average human eye just can't tell the difference between REALLY good quality and REALLY REALLY good quality." The problem is, MPEG4 isn't either of these. MPEG2 really isn't even that good, except when it is compressed at about 9MB/s (DVD quality). Keep in mind, MPEG and MPEG4 are designed for the internet. Are you telling me that the average human can't tell the difference between some streaming video file online and a TV show?
I garauntee that almost any consumer could tell the difference between DV and MPEG4. No doubt about it.
This whole thing is a dumb idea. It's not any better than recording on miniDV, connecting to your imac with firewire and dumping into iMovie (yuck) if that's what you use.
Keep in mind, this whole thing about firewire 800 is irrelevant in this application. Firewire 400 is already a ton faster than your hard drive anyway, so who cares if the wire is twice as fast, it won't speed up the transfer any.
I'm not so sure that Apple should make a digital camera... there are plenty of good ones out there, the margins are thing, and to competition fierce.
I'd like to see a hardware companion to iPhoto the way that the iPod is a hardware companion to iTunes. People love seeing/sharing photos... I think it would be quite cool if my photo library could exist -- synched of course -- on a small, lightweight viewing device.
Photo albums could be selected the way playlists are, and a jog shuttle would be the perfect interface to flipping through them. Hit the "play" button and you get a nice slide show that you can hand to your friend to check out over lunch.
That alone would be pretty neat, but where I think it would really shine would be if it were bluetooth/rendezvous-enabled. You bring your photos into work on your iPad (for lack of a decent name), and a friend of yours wants the picture you took of them. You hit the button, and zap, it is transfered into their photo library.
Better yet, if your friend has an iPad, you can easily share photos back and forth. Just select Share, then your friend's iPad, and the image gets transferred over.
People love to trade photos -- if it was as easy as click... zap... people would go nuts, similar to the way mp3s were traded, but in this case, the could actually author the stuff they traded.
Of course, it would also have a video out so you could hook it up to your TV (or anyone else's TV for that matter). You could also hook it up to an AV system for a nice slideshow during your presentation.
Given the way I've seen celluar phones take off in Asia that have the ability to share photos (though they lack any real storage capacity), I think it might be quite popular.
What would it take? A nice bright screen that works well under all lighting conditions, plenty of storage space, firewire for connecting/synching with your iPhoto library, an iPod-like battery life/charging mechanism... all seems feasible to me.
Actually, that'd be kinda neat... lets say you walked around with "free sharing" turned on -- people could stick whatever photos they wanted on your iPad, and you could check out what you picked up from people at the end of the day
[quote]You are right when you say that "the average human eye just can't tell the difference between REALLY good quality and REALLY REALLY good quality." The problem is, MPEG4 isn't either of these. MPEG2 really isn't even that good, except when it is compressed at about 9MB/s (DVD quality). Keep in mind, MPEG and MPEG4 are designed for the internet. Are you telling me that the average human can't tell the difference between some streaming video file online and a TV show?<hr></blockquote>
Not to mention iDVD sacrifices quality for speed. In iDVD content is encoded at roughly 8 Mbit CBR instead of 9.8 Mbit 2-pass VBR.
---
Ensign Pulver, I don't really see how this is so different than any of the current dual-function camcorder / still cameras. You said it yourself, such a device really isn't a very good primary DV camcorder. Why would I need to buy two camcorders when I could probably get one with both tape and HDD storage options built in?
actually iDVD isn't bad. It does 9MB/s up to 60 minutes. After that it's like 4.9MB/s Most commercial DVD's are actually around 6 or 7 which is why blacks look so horrible on conventional television sets when playing DVD's. Anyway, I shouldn't be arguing with you since you were supporting my point. I'm sorry! I just wanted to point it out! :-) thanks for understanding!!!
It would be helpful for this discussion if you actually knew what you were talking about. <hr></blockquote>
Perhaps you should go back and re-read my post. You don't seem to have read it the first time around.
[quote]First of all, you're completely wrong about converting MPEG-4 to MPEG2.<hr></blockquote>
Actually, I'm not.
[quote]Do you even know how compression algorythms work? Apparently not. You make it sound like it's similar to compressing a .sit file. Well, it isn't. When you create an MPEG file (2 or 4) what happens is that it takes each frame, compares them to the previous and following frames, figures out what is the same and averages them. You LOSE information. You can never get it back. <hr></blockquote>
Again, please READ my post. I compared it to a JPEG, not a .SIT file. I never said it was lossless. And the fact that it looks at the other frames is irrelevant. What matters is the composition of the individual frames once they are uncompressed and sitting on your monitor.
[quote]You cannot simply "uncompress" an MPEG file. Same thing with a JPEG. When you open it in Photoshop you aren't "uncompressing" it. However everytime you save it, you put it through the formula again, losing quality. With MPEG files, everytime you save them, you again lose quality. <hr></blockquote>
You are absolutely wrong here. You are indeed uncompressing the file. Once again, please READ my post. Take your favorite high-quality JPEG, open it in Photoshop, save it as a TIFF, watch the HUGE filesize difference. Do you know WHY that is? Apparently not. The reason is the new TIFF file is lossless. It will contain ALL of the information from the opened JPEG file in RAW form. Now, if you saved that same file over and over and over again as a JPEG each time, you would, indeed, lose a lot of the picture. But then, I said that before, didn't I? And I also said we're not talking about saving it over and over and over again. We're talking about doing it ONE TIME. MPEG-4->RAW. Keep and edit it in raw form until you want to output it again to whatever new format you want.
[quote]If you were saving MPEG-4 on tape, it wouldn't even be of a high enough quality to edit. <hr></blockquote>
Err, people edit VHS quality all the time and MPEG-4 is a few magnitudes better quality than VHS. No, it's not as good as DV or MPEG-2, but so what? We're not talking about a professional camera that's going to be used to make the next Star Wars.
[quote]Now, what next. Okay - you mention tape being dead. Where on EARTH do you get that from? First of all, DV standard quality video is MUCH higher than MPEG2 OR MPEG4. <hr></blockquote>
So? One more time, we're not talking about creating the next Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. We're talking CONSUMER video. CONSUMER. They still sell VHS cameras! To the average consumer, MPEG-4 will appear very close to MPEG-2 in quality.
Tape is dead because it's tape. It's a terrible medium. There are, today, things that tape is better suited for than other options. But the trend is away from all things having to do with tapes. When there is a choice, however, people will drop tape faster than Homer can eat a donut.
Mmmmm, donut.
[quote]DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme, where MPEG 2 can be as bad as 4:8:4!!!! <hr></blockquote>
I don't suppose you see that you've contridicted yourself here? "DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme". And how, exactly, do people turn the COMPRESSED DV video into COMPRESSED MPEG-2 video for DVDs? You don't suppose they UNCOMPRESS it and then RECOMPRESS it, do you? Now, your particular tool might not say this is what it's doing, but this is, indeed, what it's doing.
[quote]Sure, you can keep a ton of MPEG 4 video on your harddrive, but you can't play it on your television in that format. <hr></blockquote>
Errr, why not? If the camera has video-out, a television will play it just fine. Just like your fancy-shamcy DV tape cameras. But that too is irrelevant. The probable cycle is not Take Video, Hook Up Camera to Tele, Play Video. The cycle is Take Video, Transfer Video to Mac, Edit Video, Output Video to DVD, Play DVD on Tele.
[quote]The only thing you have a valid point on is that you can transfer MPEG 4 files faster than you can capture DV footage. DV does it in real time and has timecode allowing you to capture with in and out points capturing only EXACTLY what you want. MPEG4 has no embedded timecode. Of course, once you import DV, you can move it around nicely, just as quickly as any other file.<hr></blockquote>
My point was actually that transfering ANY file from HDD to HDD will be faster than Tape to HDD. No matter the format. If it's a simple file residing on the HD, all you have to do is copy it, not import it.
[quote]Also, how is tape dead? <hr></blockquote>
Asked and answered.
[quote]VHS is essentially dead, but it's analoge and that's the only reason. DV will be here for a LONG time. It will soon even surpass film as the chosen medium for video production.<hr></blockquote>
BTW, you keep confusing DV with DV Tape. Not the same thing. When I say Tape is dead, I'm not saying DV is dead. The reason tape is dead is that it's tape. There's no technical reason why a camera can't write MPEG-2 or DV directly to a HD.
[quote]you are right about wearing down heads on your camera. <hr></blockquote>
Finally.
[quote]Now, you talk about the speed of accessing video on your camera. Even though there are very few applications for needing to go through tons of tape on a camera, let's think about it. With my camera (a Canon XL1S) I can jump between preset scenes in very little time. I can rewind the whole tape in less than a minute!<hr></blockquote>
One minute? That's good? I can "rewind" the same thing stored on a hard disk in, just a guess, .0001 seconds.
[quote]Just how fast do you think a 20GB hard drive will be in that size footprint. It will be slower than 4200RPM I can assure you of that! Chances are it won't be much faster than tape.<hr></blockquote>
Do you know how a hard drive works? In editing off a hard drive, there is no such thing as fast forward or rewind. Tell it to go to any point in the video and it's there INSTANTLY (for the most part). This isn't a function of the spindle speed, it's a function of how data is stored and indexed.
[quote]You are right when you say that "the average human eye just can't tell the difference between REALLY good quality and REALLY REALLY good quality." The problem is, MPEG4 isn't either of these. MPEG2 really isn't even that good, except when it is compressed at about 9MB/s (DVD quality). Keep in mind, MPEG and MPEG4 are designed for the internet. Are you telling me that the average human can't tell the difference between some streaming video file online and a TV show?<hr></blockquote>
I'm saying that the average human on the average television, without stopping to look at individual frames, and if you were not doing a side-by-side comparison, would not know that they were watching an MPEG-2 or an MPEG-4 video if that MPEG-4 video was created using the highest possible rate for MPEG-4.
MPEG-4's compression is variable. While it CAN be used to stream content over the internet, it can also be used to create very decent looking video that rivals DVD quality. No, it's not as good as DVD. Yes, in side-by-side tests, you could probably tell the difference. Yes, you in particular could probably tell the difference anyway. But Joe down the street who just wants to shoot home videos of his kids will be more than pleased.
I'm not quite sure why so many people thing that every product Apple comes out with must appeal to them personally. We're not talking about anything that would replace your Canon. Not even close. I'm pretty sure I said that already.
And BTW, MPEG2, as used on DVDs is nowhere near 9MB/s. More like 4-5Mbits/s.
[quote]I garauntee that almost any consumer could tell the difference between DV and MPEG4. No doubt about it.<hr></blockquote>
I don't think you really know what MPEG-4 is capable of. I've pretty much covered the comparisons and the "It's not for pro users" thing already though. You did read the part about it not being for pro users, didn't you?
[quote]This whole thing is a dumb idea. It's not any better than recording on miniDV, connecting to your imac with firewire and dumping into iMovie (yuck) if that's what you use. <hr></blockquote>
You did read the part about it being for the MASS CONSUMER MARKET, didn't you? What do you think they use today? DV? MiniDV? MicroMV? It's NOT the first one. And, once again, you're forgetting the whole tape vs. HDD part. That's kind of critical.
[quote]Keep in mind, this whole thing about firewire 800 is irrelevant in this application. Firewire 400 is already a ton faster than your hard drive anyway, so who cares if the wire is twice as fast, it won't speed up the transfer any.<hr></blockquote>
Firewire 400 = 50MB/s (max).
Firewire 800 = 100MB/s (max).
UltraATA/66 = 66MB/s (max).
UltraATA/100 = 100MB/s (max).
UltraATA/133 = 133MB/s (max).
UltraSCSI/160 = 160MB/s (max).
UltraSCSI/320 = 320MB/s (max).
I guess you really don't know anything about hard drives.
[quote]You are absolutely wrong here. You are indeed uncompressing the file. Once again, please READ my post. Take your favorite high-quality JPEG, open it in Photoshop, save it as a TIFF, watch the HUGE filesize difference. Do you know WHY that is? Apparently not. The reason is the new TIFF file is lossless. It will contain ALL of the information from the opened JPEG file in RAW form. Now, if you saved that same file over and over and over again as a JPEG each time, you would, indeed, lose a lot of the picture. But then, I said that before, didn't I? And I also said we're not talking about saving it over and over and over again. We're talking about doing it ONE TIME. MPEG-4->RAW. Keep and edit it in raw form until you want to output it again to whatever new format you want.<hr></blockquote>
With respect to the JPEG, the TIFF is lossless, but then again there is information that cannot be recovered from what was never captured by the JPEG to begin with.
[quote]I don't suppose you see that you've contridicted yourself here? "DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme". And how, exactly, do people turn the COMPRESSED DV video into COMPRESSED MPEG-2 video for DVDs? You don't suppose they UNCOMPRESS it and then RECOMPRESS it, do you? Now, your particular tool might not say this is what it's doing, but this is, indeed, what it's doing.<hr></blockquote>
~30 megabit/s DV is remarkably less lossy than even high bitrate MPEG-4. Maybe the H.264 miracle codec will come in to save the day, but the current encoders like Apple MPEG-4, Envivo, Sorenson MPEG-4 Pro, and likely whatever is in that Samsung camera are inadequate. This is especially true when the footage will be encoded with iDVD.
[quote]I guess you really don't know anything about hard drives.<hr></blockquote>
The best ATA HDDs won't stream a large file anywhere near 50 MB/s, not to mention portable HDDs. The Ultra ATA burst speeds are nice, but the HDDs themselves can only burst as much as is in its cache.
From what I understand MPEG 4 is a superior algorythm to MPEG2. For consumers this means that we might deliver the same or similar content while using smaller files, but certainly this wouldn't happen if we ripped an MPEG4 from an MPEG2, as you'd compress an already compressed source to begin with (loses upon a lossy source, not the greatest.) But if you work from the same source material, then you can certainly make a much lower bit rate MPEG4 stream look as good as a higher bit rate MPEG2 stream.
This is why broadcasters are looking at MPEG4, they can fit more of the same quality into a tighter space. Incedentally, the DVD forum is also looking at MPEG4 as a strategy for delivering HD-DVD using current red laser discs. At the same bit rate a properly encoded MPEG4 stream will deliver noticeably superior video than MPEG2, and they CAN crank up the bit-rate enough to deliver 2-4 hours of 720P video and possibly 1080i on one DVD-9 disc. If run through a decent system, this is as good as home video will need to look for a long long time.
However, when capturing the source the camera will have to deal with a whole lot encoding problems on the fly and you will certainly notice the defects caused by lower bit rates and compression. MicroMV, which uses an MPEG2 encoder at about half the bit rate of MiniDV, produces routinely inferior results to MiniDV.
The concept may hav legs for a primarily still frame camera that also records decent video clips, but it will need a 20GB HDD minimum and whether it records in MPEG2-4, the bit rate will have to be pretty high to compensate for the weaknesses of the in camera encoders.
On the plus side, a couple of manufacturers are looking at 40-80GB 1.8" S-ATA HDD's. Soon Toshibas gonna have some competition in 1.8" drives, and Apple (or anyone else) will be able to lick the compact HDD storage problem. Though I still think Tape is better for dedicated video cameras.
Any Apple branded digital camera would have to be made by one of the companies that make them... Samsung, Nikon, Kodak, Canon, Minolta et al. There is absolutely no need for one. Margins, as stated above, are very small on these products. According to a recent article, nobody is actually making much money on them. The camera business is so cutthroat now, that two of Japan's biggest companies (Konica and Minolta) are merging to stay in business. Apple needs to keep any R&D focused on software and computers not on no-profit cameras.
I can't for the life of me understand why some people don't like removable media. MiniDV tapes are cheap, simple and reliable and the best system of storage; for pros and amateurs. You shoot some footage, you pop out the tape and you file it. What could be simplier or better?
Those of you who swear that a HD video camera would be a great thing should try this little experiment: Place a blank tape in your video camera and then super-glue it shut. Now you have a 13GB virtual HD and each time you shoot some video you will have to run to your computer and pull it off to make room for the next shoot.
And before you tell me that 13GB wouldn't be big enough remember that nothing will ever be big enough because HD space is like closet space...you always wish you had just a little more.
But i think hdd's also have a place, especially with still cameras. If the still cameras also had a decent video mode, then a large capacity I.S., hdd equipped camera would be the perfect thing for vacationers. One camera to do everything.
Let's face it, most people's video sucks ass, but a few can take decently passable pics. Fuji, I believe, lauds the video capabilities of their primarily still frame sensor.
If your digital still cam also took decent (704x500ish) video @ 30 plus fps, then that's all you need for vacationing, birthdays, home made porn, etc... regardless of the encoded format (DV, MPEG2-4), a few vignettes to easily dump to your mac along with stills and you can produce a nice little DVD complete with menus, some Ken Burns effects with some of the better stills, mebbe add in a little audio commentary... etc etc... all from one little device.
It'd have to be very compact (otherwise what's the point?) while having good still camera features (at least 3.3-4MP, I.S. (for the video at least) etc etc...
Michael Gray, Matsu, and Eugene have all proved the point, yet I...can't...let...this...go.
Faelyn wrote: [quote]Tape is dead. Tape is DEAD. DEAD, DEAD, D E A D. The 8-track died for a reason. The cassette died for a reason. VHS is about to die for a reason.<hr></blockquote>As was mentioned analog(ue) tape is dying/dead. The 8-track died because they were large, and you couldn't easily cue a favorite track. The cassette died because of CDs: digital quality, durable medium, easy song navigation, lighter. None of these applies to the miniDV tape as reasons to be supplanted by an HD. [quote]If you do a lot of video editing, you really shouldn't be using your camera as the playback deck. And in fact, simple edits on your camera will eat away at the tape mechanism. Heck, even rewinding tapes is bad for the camera and significantly shortens the camera lifespan.<hr></blockquote>Define "a lot." Are you saying that any consumer CanonZR used as any typical consumer would (holidays, children's events, celebrations, vacations)--should NOT be used as a playback device? You're mixing qualities of a pro vs. consumer user to support your argument. [quote]Tapes get lost. Tapes are slow. Which is faster - transfering a 2-hour video from tape to your computer or transfering a 2-hour video from an HDD to another HDD over Firewire 800?<snip>To jump from scene to scene using your tape camera for playback, especially when the scenes you want are not contiguous on the tape takes a LONG time and causes wear and tear on the camera. To do the same thing on an HDD camera would be nearly instant.<hr></blockquote>
Cameras drop; hard drives fail. Regardless of delivery method, the speed bottleneck is not the tape: it's the user. In reviewing a tape to see what to import I need to view it in real time. Most DVusers (either pro or amateur) use the app's playback window for first reviewing and rough importing. I rarely import 13 GBs as a whole-maybe half that (but I still keep the tape for future use--where I would need to write a series of DVD-Rs for archiving). Have you guys ever used iMovie? There is no escaping real time.
Anyway, some iCam proponents' arguments are hinging on (1) dictating what the consumer "needs" and (2) that those needs require less quality:
"The loss of a little quality and MiniDV archiving is a very small price to pay for these customers."
"There would be NO loss of quality going from MPEG-4 to MPEG-2. Why would there be? Okay, maybe just a little tiny bit, but none that you would notice."
"While professionals and semi-pros need swapping capabilities (be it HDDs or tape), does the mass market really need this?"
--comment: Apparently, since I can buy miniDV tapes at any Costco, Wal-Mart, Best Buy,etc.
"Picture didn't turn out well? Delete it and reclaim the space. Don't like that 5 minutes of video you just shot? Delete it and reclaim the space."
--[i]Scene: Anytown USA: "Honey, Jessica scored a goal! Did you get that?"--"!Q%*&^$, no! I'd run out of room on my drive and was reviewing it to see what I could delete, and the damn battery died because playing in the viewer used all the battery charge!"--"Look honey, she scored another one!!"
"20GB should hold hours of video, enough for most normal people to film what they want on holiday, then dump it to their superdrive equiped Mac when they get home."
--What if they are away on vacation overseas for three weeks and not wish to take a laptop?
As an MP3 player the iPod, in its design, has none of these limiting factors for simple reason that MP3s are small, can be easily catagorized and sorted. Just because iPod was success, you can't apply what made it a success to a video camera.
Again: I want to see these customers defined. Who would buy this in addition to a miniDV camcorder? Why would they sell enough to justify it?
I would like to see an HDD-based still camera though with FireWire connectivity.
If you have a high-end $5000 camera, the iCam probably wouldn't interest you. Just like miniDVs don't interest you (as you've stated). Just like MicroMVs don't interest you. But, guess what? They interest the general public. The mass market. I personally have no use for an iMac. But lots of other people do. Not every product will appeal to every person. This SEEMS like a simple concept....
[quote]Originally posted by scottiB:
As was mentioned analog(ue) tape is dying/dead. The 8-track died because they were large, and you couldn't easily cue a favorite track. The cassette died because of CDs: digital quality, durable medium, easy song navigation, lighter. None of these applies to the miniDV tape as reasons to be supplanted by an HD.<hr></blockquote>
Your cassette example is PRECISELY why miniDV tapes are destined for the dust heap of history. Replace CD with MFD or blue laser DVD and you've got the same scenario. But since those don't exist right now, we'll have to settle for a 40GB HD. You've convinced me though. I put in a call to Steve and told him to make it swappable.
[quote]Define "a lot." Are you saying that any consumer CanonZR used as any typical consumer would (holidays, children's events, celebrations, vacations)--should NOT be used as a playback device? You're mixing qualities of a pro vs. consumer user to support your argument. <hr></blockquote>
Yes, I'm saying that it's not a good idea to use your consumer quality CanonZR as a playback device. It's also not a good idea for your pro camera. It's not a good idea for ANY camera except the iCam. Wouldn't hurt the iCam one bit.
[quote]Cameras drop; hard drives fail. Regardless of delivery method, the speed bottleneck is not the tape: it's the user. In reviewing a tape to see what to import I need to view it in real time. Most DVusers (either pro or amateur) use the app's playback window for first reviewing and rough importing. I rarely import 13 GBs as a whole-maybe half that (but I still keep the tape for future use--where I would need to write a series of DVD-Rs for archiving). Have you guys ever used iMovie? There is no escaping real time. <hr></blockquote>
Man, you guys are RIPE for a reality shift in the way you do your video editing. And you keep comparing what a professional will do to what Joe-Sixpod will do. The average guy will take a two hour video of junior's birthday, maybe do a little editing, and slap the majority of it on VHS or DVD. THE MASS MARKET IS NOT THE PRO MARKET.
And you keep implying that tape editing is JUST AS GOOD as HD editing. It isn't. You then confuse the situation when pinned down here by saying tape is cheap. Yes, it is. So what? Cassette tapes were cheap too. Now they're dead. The point is, if you have a choice and if all else is for the most part equal, HD or DVD or MFD is a MUCH better option than tape. These options will VERY SOON (but not today) be a MUCH better option for the mass market. For the pro market it might take a little longer. But we're not talking about a pro market camera, are we?
[quote]Anyway, some iCam proponents' arguments are hinging on (1) dictating what the consumer "needs" <hr></blockquote>
Try "guessing what the consumer wants" instead. This is done every single day with every single product in the world. Guess wrong and you lose your job as CEO. Guess right and you get a boatload of stock options.
[quote]Again: I want to see these customers defined. Who would buy this in addition to a miniDV camcorder? Why would they sell enough to justify it?<hr></blockquote>
First tell me why this question makes any kind of sense. Who would buy the newest miniDV camera on the market in addition to what's out there? Who would buy a MicroMV in addition to what's out there? Who would buy anything new at all when there are older models that, for the most part, kind of do the same thing?
~30 megabit/s DV is remarkably less lossy than even high bitrate MPEG-4. Maybe the H.264 miracle codec will come in to save the day, but the current encoders like Apple MPEG-4, Envivo, Sorenson MPEG-4 Pro, and likely whatever is in that Samsung camera are inadequate. This is especially true when the footage will be encoded with iDVD. ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think again we're mixing up Pro and Semi-Pro with mass market. Look at the garbage quality people put up with on Windows video. Even after miniDVs came out , the mass market was still quite happy with VHS. Just because something wouldn't be as good as a PRO could produce doesn't mean the mass market wouldn't eat it up. And, MPEG-4, while not what a PRO could produce, is still really really good for the mass maket.
Faelyn wrote: [quote]First tell me why this question makes any kind of sense. Who would buy the newest miniDV camera on the market in addition to what's out there? Who would buy a MicroMV in addition to what's out there? Who would buy anything new at all when there are older models that, for the most part, kind of do the same thing?<hr></blockquote>
My reply was to what Ensign Pulver wrote up the thread: [quote]The iCam is not instead of traditional camcorders, it's in addition to. All of your above points are valid and there's nothing stopping you from using a existing third party camcorder to capture, transfer and store your DV in the traditional ways.<hr></blockquote>
[quote]Man, you guys are RIPE for a reality shift in the way you do your video editing. And you keep comparing what a professional will do to what Joe-Sixpod will do. The average guy will take a two hour video of junior's birthday, maybe do a little editing, and slap the majority of it on VHS or DVD. THE MASS MARKET IS NOT THE PRO MARKET.
And you keep implying that tape editing is JUST AS GOOD as HD editing.<hr></blockquote> Look, I'm not a pro. I have a 2-year old ZR-10 and an SuperDrive G4. I use iMovie. I shoot my tape of Xmas, edit what's important (at the time), and file my tape in case I want to use it later, or in case there are other shots that seem important for a different purpose. To do that with what you propose (a 40 GB HD camera), I'd need to back-up the content to 9 DVD-Rs--or keep buying drives.
BTW, I'm editing on a hard drive. I'm capturing to a mini-DV tape.
[quote]Try "guessing what the consumer wants" instead. This is done every single day with every single product in the world. Guess wrong and you lose your job as CEO. Guess right and you get a boatload of stock options.<hr></blockquote>
I agree, but take your camera right now to Best Buy, plop it next to a $600 Canon ZR series camcorder, and sell it to someone who's in the market. How would you convince him/her that it's preferable? That it's worth a greater expense? Sell it--your stock options are on the line.
I'm not saying that HD based cameras are not coming nor are they a bad idea in theory. Apple didn't come out with the first MP3 player. They waited and introduced the best. They should here, too, if at all.
1. Is it not possible that a slick algorithm could be made to translate mpeg-4 to mpeg-2 without additional loss? I'm not talking about un-compressing then re-compressing, but instead acounting for sacrifices mpeg-4 makes and making sure mpeg-2 doesn't amplify such.
I agree that it would seem necessary for a useful iCam to either record in mpeg-2 directly or quickly convert to mpeg-2 in order to speed up DVD production.
2. I agree with those who complain about the marketability of lesser quality picture. The reality may be that people can't tell the difference (I honestly can't tell the difference between 60 minute and 90 minute iDVDs), but when I'm filming my kids first steps I like to think I'm capturing it somewhere at the highest possible quality.
3. As for speed I do think the single biggest pain about editing DV video is importing it from tape to computer. If a hard drive based cam can make this process at least twice as fast it would be a big selling point, IMO. I checked Toshiba's web site and their small HDs claim 100 MB/s transfer rate (that seems incorrect), but if true then you could transfer even 1 hr of DV footage in about 2 minutes. Presumably much faster if stored in mpeg-2 or 4.
4. Options are a selling point. I'd really like an iCam that gave me the option of storing in DV, mpeg-2 or 4 and with a 20 gig drive giving me the ability to store anywhere from an hour and a half to 20 hrs of footage. That and an X3 chip so I could take great stills and HD footage if I wanted.
5. No tape, no removable media. Everytime I see all the complicated moving parts in my Sony when I take a tape out I think that it's got to be more expensive from a manufacturing viewpoint than simply putting a hard drive in. It would surely facilitate a more compact device and might enable a waterproof design (don't know about the firewire port).
They might be smart to have an option for hooking up an external pocket firewire drive for quick additional storage or downloading, just to remove the objection, but I've never personally filmed more than 6 hrs of footage at any one event.
You guys can theorize all you want, but tape is still cheaper, faster, easier and more reliable than any HD video solution. It's gonna be around for a long while.
Comments
It would be helpful for this discussion if you actually knew what you were talking about. First of all, you're completely wrong about converting MPEG-4 to MPEG2. Do you even know how compression algorythms work? Apparently not. You make it sound like it's similar to compressing a .sit file. Well, it isn't. When you create an MPEG file (2 or 4) what happens is that it takes each frame, compares them to the previous and following frames, figures out what is the same and averages them. You LOSE information. You can never get it back.
You cannot simply "uncompress" an MPEG file. Same thing with a JPEG. When you open it in Photoshop you aren't "uncompressing" it. However everytime you save it, you put it through the formula again, losing quality. With MPEG files, everytime you save them, you again lose quality.
If you were saving MPEG-4 on tape, it wouldn't even be of a high enough quality to edit.
Now, what next. Okay - you mention tape being dead. Where on EARTH do you get that from? First of all, DV standard quality video is MUCH higher than MPEG2 OR MPEG4. DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme, where MPEG 2 can be as bad as 4:8:4!!!! Sure, you can keep a ton of MPEG 4 video on your harddrive, but you can't play it on your television in that format.
The only thing you have a valid point on is that you can transfer MPEG 4 files faster than you can capture DV footage. DV does it in real time and has timecode allowing you to capture with in and out points capturing only EXACTLY what you want. MPEG4 has no embedded timecode. Of course, once you import DV, you can move it around nicely, just as quickly as any other file.
Also, how is tape dead? DV, which is digital, and is essentially 1's and 0's just like hard drive, just arranged differently, is an awful lot cheaper! I can buy 20 DV tapes for $60.00, and get the equivilent of over 200GB of storage space. That would cost me what - $300 in hard drives?
VHS is essentially dead, but it's analoge and that's the only reason. DV will be here for a LONG time. It will soon even surpass film as the chosen medium for video production.
you are right about wearing down heads on your camera. It doesn't "eat" away at the mechanism, but what happens is that eventually, the magnet becomes weaker which translates into less accurate recording and loss of richness and quality.
Now, you talk about the speed of accessing video on your camera. Even though there are very few applications for needing to go through tons of tape on a camera, let's think about it. With my camera (a Canon XL1S) I can jump between preset scenes in very little time. I can rewind the whole tape in less than a minute!
Just how fast do you think a 20GB hard drive will be in that size footprint. It will be slower than 4200RPM I can assure you of that! Chances are it won't be much faster than tape.
You are right when you say that "the average human eye just can't tell the difference between REALLY good quality and REALLY REALLY good quality." The problem is, MPEG4 isn't either of these. MPEG2 really isn't even that good, except when it is compressed at about 9MB/s (DVD quality). Keep in mind, MPEG and MPEG4 are designed for the internet. Are you telling me that the average human can't tell the difference between some streaming video file online and a TV show?
I garauntee that almost any consumer could tell the difference between DV and MPEG4. No doubt about it.
This whole thing is a dumb idea. It's not any better than recording on miniDV, connecting to your imac with firewire and dumping into iMovie (yuck) if that's what you use.
Keep in mind, this whole thing about firewire 800 is irrelevant in this application. Firewire 400 is already a ton faster than your hard drive anyway, so who cares if the wire is twice as fast, it won't speed up the transfer any.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: OBJRA10 ]</p>
I'd like to see a hardware companion to iPhoto the way that the iPod is a hardware companion to iTunes. People love seeing/sharing photos... I think it would be quite cool if my photo library could exist -- synched of course -- on a small, lightweight viewing device.
Photo albums could be selected the way playlists are, and a jog shuttle would be the perfect interface to flipping through them. Hit the "play" button and you get a nice slide show that you can hand to your friend to check out over lunch.
That alone would be pretty neat, but where I think it would really shine would be if it were bluetooth/rendezvous-enabled. You bring your photos into work on your iPad (for lack of a decent name), and a friend of yours wants the picture you took of them. You hit the button, and zap, it is transfered into their photo library.
Better yet, if your friend has an iPad, you can easily share photos back and forth. Just select Share, then your friend's iPad, and the image gets transferred over.
People love to trade photos -- if it was as easy as click... zap... people would go nuts, similar to the way mp3s were traded, but in this case, the could actually author the stuff they traded.
Of course, it would also have a video out so you could hook it up to your TV (or anyone else's TV for that matter). You could also hook it up to an AV system for a nice slideshow during your presentation.
Given the way I've seen celluar phones take off in Asia that have the ability to share photos (though they lack any real storage capacity), I think it might be quite popular.
What would it take? A nice bright screen that works well under all lighting conditions, plenty of storage space, firewire for connecting/synching with your iPhoto library, an iPod-like battery life/charging mechanism... all seems feasible to me.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: moki ]</p>
Not to mention iDVD sacrifices quality for speed. In iDVD content is encoded at roughly 8 Mbit CBR instead of 9.8 Mbit 2-pass VBR.
---
Ensign Pulver, I don't really see how this is so different than any of the current dual-function camcorder / still cameras. You said it yourself, such a device really isn't a very good primary DV camcorder. Why would I need to buy two camcorders when I could probably get one with both tape and HDD storage options built in?
Faelyn,
It would be helpful for this discussion if you actually knew what you were talking about. <hr></blockquote>
Perhaps you should go back and re-read my post. You don't seem to have read it the first time around.
[quote]First of all, you're completely wrong about converting MPEG-4 to MPEG2.<hr></blockquote>
Actually, I'm not.
[quote]Do you even know how compression algorythms work? Apparently not. You make it sound like it's similar to compressing a .sit file. Well, it isn't. When you create an MPEG file (2 or 4) what happens is that it takes each frame, compares them to the previous and following frames, figures out what is the same and averages them. You LOSE information. You can never get it back. <hr></blockquote>
Again, please READ my post. I compared it to a JPEG, not a .SIT file. I never said it was lossless. And the fact that it looks at the other frames is irrelevant. What matters is the composition of the individual frames once they are uncompressed and sitting on your monitor.
[quote]You cannot simply "uncompress" an MPEG file. Same thing with a JPEG. When you open it in Photoshop you aren't "uncompressing" it. However everytime you save it, you put it through the formula again, losing quality. With MPEG files, everytime you save them, you again lose quality. <hr></blockquote>
You are absolutely wrong here. You are indeed uncompressing the file. Once again, please READ my post. Take your favorite high-quality JPEG, open it in Photoshop, save it as a TIFF, watch the HUGE filesize difference. Do you know WHY that is? Apparently not. The reason is the new TIFF file is lossless. It will contain ALL of the information from the opened JPEG file in RAW form. Now, if you saved that same file over and over and over again as a JPEG each time, you would, indeed, lose a lot of the picture. But then, I said that before, didn't I? And I also said we're not talking about saving it over and over and over again. We're talking about doing it ONE TIME. MPEG-4->RAW. Keep and edit it in raw form until you want to output it again to whatever new format you want.
[quote]If you were saving MPEG-4 on tape, it wouldn't even be of a high enough quality to edit. <hr></blockquote>
Err, people edit VHS quality all the time and MPEG-4 is a few magnitudes better quality than VHS. No, it's not as good as DV or MPEG-2, but so what? We're not talking about a professional camera that's going to be used to make the next Star Wars.
[quote]Now, what next. Okay - you mention tape being dead. Where on EARTH do you get that from? First of all, DV standard quality video is MUCH higher than MPEG2 OR MPEG4. <hr></blockquote>
So? One more time, we're not talking about creating the next Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. We're talking CONSUMER video. CONSUMER. They still sell VHS cameras! To the average consumer, MPEG-4 will appear very close to MPEG-2 in quality.
Tape is dead because it's tape. It's a terrible medium. There are, today, things that tape is better suited for than other options. But the trend is away from all things having to do with tapes. When there is a choice, however, people will drop tape faster than Homer can eat a donut.
Mmmmm, donut.
[quote]DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme, where MPEG 2 can be as bad as 4:8:4!!!! <hr></blockquote>
I don't suppose you see that you've contridicted yourself here? "DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme". And how, exactly, do people turn the COMPRESSED DV video into COMPRESSED MPEG-2 video for DVDs? You don't suppose they UNCOMPRESS it and then RECOMPRESS it, do you? Now, your particular tool might not say this is what it's doing, but this is, indeed, what it's doing.
[quote]Sure, you can keep a ton of MPEG 4 video on your harddrive, but you can't play it on your television in that format. <hr></blockquote>
Errr, why not? If the camera has video-out, a television will play it just fine. Just like your fancy-shamcy DV tape cameras. But that too is irrelevant. The probable cycle is not Take Video, Hook Up Camera to Tele, Play Video. The cycle is Take Video, Transfer Video to Mac, Edit Video, Output Video to DVD, Play DVD on Tele.
[quote]The only thing you have a valid point on is that you can transfer MPEG 4 files faster than you can capture DV footage. DV does it in real time and has timecode allowing you to capture with in and out points capturing only EXACTLY what you want. MPEG4 has no embedded timecode. Of course, once you import DV, you can move it around nicely, just as quickly as any other file.<hr></blockquote>
My point was actually that transfering ANY file from HDD to HDD will be faster than Tape to HDD. No matter the format. If it's a simple file residing on the HD, all you have to do is copy it, not import it.
[quote]Also, how is tape dead? <hr></blockquote>
Asked and answered.
[quote]VHS is essentially dead, but it's analoge and that's the only reason. DV will be here for a LONG time. It will soon even surpass film as the chosen medium for video production.<hr></blockquote>
BTW, you keep confusing DV with DV Tape. Not the same thing. When I say Tape is dead, I'm not saying DV is dead. The reason tape is dead is that it's tape. There's no technical reason why a camera can't write MPEG-2 or DV directly to a HD.
[quote]you are right about wearing down heads on your camera. <hr></blockquote>
Finally.
[quote]Now, you talk about the speed of accessing video on your camera. Even though there are very few applications for needing to go through tons of tape on a camera, let's think about it. With my camera (a Canon XL1S) I can jump between preset scenes in very little time. I can rewind the whole tape in less than a minute!<hr></blockquote>
One minute? That's good? I can "rewind" the same thing stored on a hard disk in, just a guess, .0001 seconds.
[quote]Just how fast do you think a 20GB hard drive will be in that size footprint. It will be slower than 4200RPM I can assure you of that! Chances are it won't be much faster than tape.<hr></blockquote>
Do you know how a hard drive works? In editing off a hard drive, there is no such thing as fast forward or rewind. Tell it to go to any point in the video and it's there INSTANTLY (for the most part). This isn't a function of the spindle speed, it's a function of how data is stored and indexed.
[quote]You are right when you say that "the average human eye just can't tell the difference between REALLY good quality and REALLY REALLY good quality." The problem is, MPEG4 isn't either of these. MPEG2 really isn't even that good, except when it is compressed at about 9MB/s (DVD quality). Keep in mind, MPEG and MPEG4 are designed for the internet. Are you telling me that the average human can't tell the difference between some streaming video file online and a TV show?<hr></blockquote>
I'm saying that the average human on the average television, without stopping to look at individual frames, and if you were not doing a side-by-side comparison, would not know that they were watching an MPEG-2 or an MPEG-4 video if that MPEG-4 video was created using the highest possible rate for MPEG-4.
MPEG-4's compression is variable. While it CAN be used to stream content over the internet, it can also be used to create very decent looking video that rivals DVD quality. No, it's not as good as DVD. Yes, in side-by-side tests, you could probably tell the difference. Yes, you in particular could probably tell the difference anyway. But Joe down the street who just wants to shoot home videos of his kids will be more than pleased.
I'm not quite sure why so many people thing that every product Apple comes out with must appeal to them personally. We're not talking about anything that would replace your Canon. Not even close. I'm pretty sure I said that already.
And BTW, MPEG2, as used on DVDs is nowhere near 9MB/s. More like 4-5Mbits/s.
[quote]I garauntee that almost any consumer could tell the difference between DV and MPEG4. No doubt about it.<hr></blockquote>
I don't think you really know what MPEG-4 is capable of. I've pretty much covered the comparisons and the "It's not for pro users" thing already though. You did read the part about it not being for pro users, didn't you?
[quote]This whole thing is a dumb idea. It's not any better than recording on miniDV, connecting to your imac with firewire and dumping into iMovie (yuck) if that's what you use. <hr></blockquote>
You did read the part about it being for the MASS CONSUMER MARKET, didn't you? What do you think they use today? DV? MiniDV? MicroMV? It's NOT the first one. And, once again, you're forgetting the whole tape vs. HDD part. That's kind of critical.
[quote]Keep in mind, this whole thing about firewire 800 is irrelevant in this application. Firewire 400 is already a ton faster than your hard drive anyway, so who cares if the wire is twice as fast, it won't speed up the transfer any.<hr></blockquote>
Firewire 400 = 50MB/s (max).
Firewire 800 = 100MB/s (max).
UltraATA/66 = 66MB/s (max).
UltraATA/100 = 100MB/s (max).
UltraATA/133 = 133MB/s (max).
UltraSCSI/160 = 160MB/s (max).
UltraSCSI/320 = 320MB/s (max).
I guess you really don't know anything about hard drives.
With respect to the JPEG, the TIFF is lossless, but then again there is information that cannot be recovered from what was never captured by the JPEG to begin with.
[quote]I don't suppose you see that you've contridicted yourself here? "DV uses a 4:4:1 compression scheme". And how, exactly, do people turn the COMPRESSED DV video into COMPRESSED MPEG-2 video for DVDs? You don't suppose they UNCOMPRESS it and then RECOMPRESS it, do you? Now, your particular tool might not say this is what it's doing, but this is, indeed, what it's doing.<hr></blockquote>
~30 megabit/s DV is remarkably less lossy than even high bitrate MPEG-4. Maybe the H.264 miracle codec will come in to save the day, but the current encoders like Apple MPEG-4, Envivo, Sorenson MPEG-4 Pro, and likely whatever is in that Samsung camera are inadequate. This is especially true when the footage will be encoded with iDVD.
[quote]I guess you really don't know anything about hard drives.<hr></blockquote>
The best ATA HDDs won't stream a large file anywhere near 50 MB/s, not to mention portable HDDs. The Ultra ATA burst speeds are nice, but the HDDs themselves can only burst as much as is in its cache.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
This is why broadcasters are looking at MPEG4, they can fit more of the same quality into a tighter space. Incedentally, the DVD forum is also looking at MPEG4 as a strategy for delivering HD-DVD using current red laser discs. At the same bit rate a properly encoded MPEG4 stream will deliver noticeably superior video than MPEG2, and they CAN crank up the bit-rate enough to deliver 2-4 hours of 720P video and possibly 1080i on one DVD-9 disc. If run through a decent system, this is as good as home video will need to look for a long long time.
However, when capturing the source the camera will have to deal with a whole lot encoding problems on the fly and you will certainly notice the defects caused by lower bit rates and compression. MicroMV, which uses an MPEG2 encoder at about half the bit rate of MiniDV, produces routinely inferior results to MiniDV.
The concept may hav legs for a primarily still frame camera that also records decent video clips, but it will need a 20GB HDD minimum and whether it records in MPEG2-4, the bit rate will have to be pretty high to compensate for the weaknesses of the in camera encoders.
On the plus side, a couple of manufacturers are looking at 40-80GB 1.8" S-ATA HDD's. Soon Toshibas gonna have some competition in 1.8" drives, and Apple (or anyone else) will be able to lick the compact HDD storage problem. Though I still think Tape is better for dedicated video cameras.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: MacsRGood4U ]</p>
Those of you who swear that a HD video camera would be a great thing should try this little experiment: Place a blank tape in your video camera and then super-glue it shut. Now you have a 13GB virtual HD and each time you shoot some video you will have to run to your computer and pull it off to make room for the next shoot.
And before you tell me that 13GB wouldn't be big enough remember that nothing will ever be big enough because HD space is like closet space...you always wish you had just a little more.
But i think hdd's also have a place, especially with still cameras. If the still cameras also had a decent video mode, then a large capacity I.S., hdd equipped camera would be the perfect thing for vacationers. One camera to do everything.
Let's face it, most people's video sucks ass, but a few can take decently passable pics. Fuji, I believe, lauds the video capabilities of their primarily still frame sensor.
If your digital still cam also took decent (704x500ish) video @ 30 plus fps, then that's all you need for vacationing, birthdays, home made porn, etc... regardless of the encoded format (DV, MPEG2-4), a few vignettes to easily dump to your mac along with stills and you can produce a nice little DVD complete with menus, some Ken Burns effects with some of the better stills, mebbe add in a little audio commentary... etc etc... all from one little device.
It'd have to be very compact (otherwise what's the point?) while having good still camera features (at least 3.3-4MP, I.S. (for the video at least) etc etc...
Faelyn wrote: [quote]Tape is dead. Tape is DEAD. DEAD, DEAD, D E A D. The 8-track died for a reason. The cassette died for a reason. VHS is about to die for a reason.<hr></blockquote>As was mentioned analog(ue) tape is dying/dead. The 8-track died because they were large, and you couldn't easily cue a favorite track. The cassette died because of CDs: digital quality, durable medium, easy song navigation, lighter. None of these applies to the miniDV tape as reasons to be supplanted by an HD. [quote]If you do a lot of video editing, you really shouldn't be using your camera as the playback deck. And in fact, simple edits on your camera will eat away at the tape mechanism. Heck, even rewinding tapes is bad for the camera and significantly shortens the camera lifespan.<hr></blockquote>Define "a lot." Are you saying that any consumer CanonZR used as any typical consumer would (holidays, children's events, celebrations, vacations)--should NOT be used as a playback device? You're mixing qualities of a pro vs. consumer user to support your argument. [quote]Tapes get lost. Tapes are slow. Which is faster - transfering a 2-hour video from tape to your computer or transfering a 2-hour video from an HDD to another HDD over Firewire 800?<snip>To jump from scene to scene using your tape camera for playback, especially when the scenes you want are not contiguous on the tape takes a LONG time and causes wear and tear on the camera. To do the same thing on an HDD camera would be nearly instant.<hr></blockquote>
Cameras drop; hard drives fail. Regardless of delivery method, the speed bottleneck is not the tape: it's the user. In reviewing a tape to see what to import I need to view it in real time. Most DVusers (either pro or amateur) use the app's playback window for first reviewing and rough importing. I rarely import 13 GBs as a whole-maybe half that (but I still keep the tape for future use--where I would need to write a series of DVD-Rs for archiving). Have you guys ever used iMovie? There is no escaping real time.
Anyway, some iCam proponents' arguments are hinging on (1) dictating what the consumer "needs" and (2) that those needs require less quality:
- "The loss of a little quality and MiniDV archiving is a very small price to pay for these customers."
- "There would be NO loss of quality going from MPEG-4 to MPEG-2. Why would there be? Okay, maybe just a little tiny bit, but none that you would notice."
- "While professionals and semi-pros need swapping capabilities (be it HDDs or tape), does the mass market really need this?"
- "Picture didn't turn out well? Delete it and reclaim the space. Don't like that 5 minutes of video you just shot? Delete it and reclaim the space."
- "20GB should hold hours of video, enough for most normal people to film what they want on holiday, then dump it to their superdrive equiped Mac when they get home."
As an MP3 player the iPod, in its design, has none of these limiting factors for simple reason that MP3s are small, can be easily catagorized and sorted. Just because iPod was success, you can't apply what made it a success to a video camera.--comment: Apparently, since I can buy miniDV tapes at any Costco, Wal-Mart, Best Buy,etc.
--[i]Scene: Anytown USA: "Honey, Jessica scored a goal! Did you get that?"--"!Q%*&^$, no! I'd run out of room on my drive and was reviewing it to see what I could delete, and the damn battery died because playing in the viewer used all the battery charge!"--"Look honey, she scored another one!!"
--What if they are away on vacation overseas for three weeks and not wish to take a laptop?
Again: I want to see these customers defined. Who would buy this in addition to a miniDV camcorder? Why would they sell enough to justify it?
I would like to see an HDD-based still camera though with FireWire connectivity.
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: scottiB ]
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: scottiB ]
[ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: scottiB ]</p>
[quote]Originally posted by scottiB:
As was mentioned analog(ue) tape is dying/dead. The 8-track died because they were large, and you couldn't easily cue a favorite track. The cassette died because of CDs: digital quality, durable medium, easy song navigation, lighter. None of these applies to the miniDV tape as reasons to be supplanted by an HD.<hr></blockquote>
Your cassette example is PRECISELY why miniDV tapes are destined for the dust heap of history. Replace CD with MFD or blue laser DVD and you've got the same scenario. But since those don't exist right now, we'll have to settle for a 40GB HD. You've convinced me though. I put in a call to Steve and told him to make it swappable.
[quote]Define "a lot." Are you saying that any consumer CanonZR used as any typical consumer would (holidays, children's events, celebrations, vacations)--should NOT be used as a playback device? You're mixing qualities of a pro vs. consumer user to support your argument. <hr></blockquote>
Yes, I'm saying that it's not a good idea to use your consumer quality CanonZR as a playback device. It's also not a good idea for your pro camera. It's not a good idea for ANY camera except the iCam. Wouldn't hurt the iCam one bit.
[quote]Cameras drop; hard drives fail. Regardless of delivery method, the speed bottleneck is not the tape: it's the user. In reviewing a tape to see what to import I need to view it in real time. Most DVusers (either pro or amateur) use the app's playback window for first reviewing and rough importing. I rarely import 13 GBs as a whole-maybe half that (but I still keep the tape for future use--where I would need to write a series of DVD-Rs for archiving). Have you guys ever used iMovie? There is no escaping real time. <hr></blockquote>
Man, you guys are RIPE for a reality shift in the way you do your video editing. And you keep comparing what a professional will do to what Joe-Sixpod will do. The average guy will take a two hour video of junior's birthday, maybe do a little editing, and slap the majority of it on VHS or DVD. THE MASS MARKET IS NOT THE PRO MARKET.
And you keep implying that tape editing is JUST AS GOOD as HD editing. It isn't. You then confuse the situation when pinned down here by saying tape is cheap. Yes, it is. So what? Cassette tapes were cheap too. Now they're dead. The point is, if you have a choice and if all else is for the most part equal, HD or DVD or MFD is a MUCH better option than tape. These options will VERY SOON (but not today) be a MUCH better option for the mass market. For the pro market it might take a little longer. But we're not talking about a pro market camera, are we?
[quote]Anyway, some iCam proponents' arguments are hinging on (1) dictating what the consumer "needs" <hr></blockquote>
Try "guessing what the consumer wants" instead. This is done every single day with every single product in the world. Guess wrong and you lose your job as CEO. Guess right and you get a boatload of stock options.
[quote]Again: I want to see these customers defined. Who would buy this in addition to a miniDV camcorder? Why would they sell enough to justify it?<hr></blockquote>
First tell me why this question makes any kind of sense. Who would buy the newest miniDV camera on the market in addition to what's out there? Who would buy a MicroMV in addition to what's out there? Who would buy anything new at all when there are older models that, for the most part, kind of do the same thing?
[ 01-17-2003: Message edited by: Faeylyn ]</p>
<strong>
~30 megabit/s DV is remarkably less lossy than even high bitrate MPEG-4. Maybe the H.264 miracle codec will come in to save the day, but the current encoders like Apple MPEG-4, Envivo, Sorenson MPEG-4 Pro, and likely whatever is in that Samsung camera are inadequate. This is especially true when the footage will be encoded with iDVD. ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think again we're mixing up Pro and Semi-Pro with mass market. Look at the garbage quality people put up with on Windows video. Even after miniDVs came out , the mass market was still quite happy with VHS. Just because something wouldn't be as good as a PRO could produce doesn't mean the mass market wouldn't eat it up. And, MPEG-4, while not what a PRO could produce, is still really really good for the mass maket.
My reply was to what Ensign Pulver wrote up the thread: [quote]The iCam is not instead of traditional camcorders, it's in addition to. All of your above points are valid and there's nothing stopping you from using a existing third party camcorder to capture, transfer and store your DV in the traditional ways.<hr></blockquote>
[quote]Man, you guys are RIPE for a reality shift in the way you do your video editing. And you keep comparing what a professional will do to what Joe-Sixpod will do. The average guy will take a two hour video of junior's birthday, maybe do a little editing, and slap the majority of it on VHS or DVD. THE MASS MARKET IS NOT THE PRO MARKET.
And you keep implying that tape editing is JUST AS GOOD as HD editing.<hr></blockquote> Look, I'm not a pro. I have a 2-year old ZR-10 and an SuperDrive G4. I use iMovie. I shoot my tape of Xmas, edit what's important (at the time), and file my tape in case I want to use it later, or in case there are other shots that seem important for a different purpose. To do that with what you propose (a 40 GB HD camera), I'd need to back-up the content to 9 DVD-Rs--or keep buying drives.
BTW, I'm editing on a hard drive. I'm capturing to a mini-DV tape.
[quote]Try "guessing what the consumer wants" instead. This is done every single day with every single product in the world. Guess wrong and you lose your job as CEO. Guess right and you get a boatload of stock options.<hr></blockquote>
I agree, but take your camera right now to Best Buy, plop it next to a $600 Canon ZR series camcorder, and sell it to someone who's in the market. How would you convince him/her that it's preferable? That it's worth a greater expense? Sell it--your stock options are on the line.
I'm not saying that HD based cameras are not coming nor are they a bad idea in theory. Apple didn't come out with the first MP3 player. They waited and introduced the best. They should here, too, if at all.
[ 01-17-2003: Message edited by: scottiB ]</p>
1. Is it not possible that a slick algorithm could be made to translate mpeg-4 to mpeg-2 without additional loss? I'm not talking about un-compressing then re-compressing, but instead acounting for sacrifices mpeg-4 makes and making sure mpeg-2 doesn't amplify such.
I agree that it would seem necessary for a useful iCam to either record in mpeg-2 directly or quickly convert to mpeg-2 in order to speed up DVD production.
2. I agree with those who complain about the marketability of lesser quality picture. The reality may be that people can't tell the difference (I honestly can't tell the difference between 60 minute and 90 minute iDVDs), but when I'm filming my kids first steps I like to think I'm capturing it somewhere at the highest possible quality.
3. As for speed I do think the single biggest pain about editing DV video is importing it from tape to computer. If a hard drive based cam can make this process at least twice as fast it would be a big selling point, IMO. I checked Toshiba's web site and their small HDs claim 100 MB/s transfer rate (that seems incorrect), but if true then you could transfer even 1 hr of DV footage in about 2 minutes. Presumably much faster if stored in mpeg-2 or 4.
4. Options are a selling point. I'd really like an iCam that gave me the option of storing in DV, mpeg-2 or 4 and with a 20 gig drive giving me the ability to store anywhere from an hour and a half to 20 hrs of footage. That and an X3 chip so I could take great stills and HD footage if I wanted.
5. No tape, no removable media. Everytime I see all the complicated moving parts in my Sony when I take a tape out I think that it's got to be more expensive from a manufacturing viewpoint than simply putting a hard drive in. It would surely facilitate a more compact device and might enable a waterproof design (don't know about the firewire port).
They might be smart to have an option for hooking up an external pocket firewire drive for quick additional storage or downloading, just to remove the objection, but I've never personally filmed more than 6 hrs of footage at any one event.
[ 01-18-2003: Message edited by: Nordstrodamus ]</p>