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General discussion

Camcorder For Animation

Dec 16, 2005 12:50PM PST

I'm looking for a camcorder for filming reference material for 3D animation. I was told to get a mini dv camcorder and use the dv in plug to connect it to my computer. Can anyone recommend a camcorder? mini dv or something else? It doesn't have to be very fancy; I'm willing to spend about $300 or $400. It would be great if I could play back the footage at slower speeds and see it frame by frame. Are the Sony HC-21 and HC-32 any good? Also, what are the main differences between mini dvd and dv. Do the mini dvds get higher video quality? Thanks.

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The mini DVDs get substantially lower quality.
Dec 17, 2005 1:05AM PST

Their main advantage is that they avoid the capture process that is used with miniDV tape. However, if you ever want to edit the video, they present a whole new range of problems including the inferior quality of the source material. They have a substantially reduced recording time, and are vulnerable to a loss of all their video if the disc closing process fails.

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In addition, use software for slo-mo
Dec 17, 2005 2:21AM PST

Mini-DV is the way to go, as mentioned. Input the footage into your computer, then use software to do slo-mo. some editing programs allow this and there are some third-party software programs that do this. What you want to do with slo-mo isn't somethng that is found in consumer cameras. Even in professional cameras, the footage is shot then additional computers and software are used to dissect the footage. If you had a professional camera or one of the new HD cameras, you could shoot footage at 24fps instead of 30, and you would end up with clean images every frame rather than frames that do the 3:2 scenario. But that's another story.