There is one very nice area with the mini-DVD recorders and I found the speed of video transfer to the PC to be stellar compared to miniDV which is 1 to 1 speed.
I never found finalizing to take more or less time. But it does exceed the 15 seconds that is accepted by human factors designers to be "too long" for most people.
Bob
Hello,
I am about to purchase a camcorder, but I don't know if DVD is better than miniDV. Here are my questions about them:
1. I suppose, with DVD, storage capacity is more limited than with minDV. Provided that this assumption is correct, the video signal may have to be compacted (more) before storing it on the DVD than storing on miniDV. In other words, is it true that the actual signal stored depends on the storing media?
2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then does the compacting process loose information, i.e. is the quality lesser?
3. This question is about "finalizing". I was told that before a DVD is played in any other device (DVD player or computer) than the camcorder, it has to be finalized, which does not at all mean "write protected". I was also told that the time it takes to finalize a DVD in INVERSLY proportional to the length of material recorded on it and a few minutes recording may take hours to finalize (a half an hour recording, on the other hand is finalized in minutes). Is this true? If yes, having to copy from miniDV to the PC may actually be faster than popping the DVD to the PC after the long finalization.
Thanks,
Gabor

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