Episode #167
I am considering buying a camcorder that records to an SDHC card, rather than a DVD or HD drive. I figure the less moving parts to wrong the better. However since I do not know of anyone with experience with using “cards” for recording movies I am asking you if thee are any issues I should be aware of. Thanks Brian
Brian, Kitchener, ON
I use them and love them! Right now I’m using a Panasonic SD5 but Sony, JVC, and others are all now making camcorders that record to SD Card.
The disadvantages are that they’re more expensive than tape - one 8GB SDHC card holds about an hour 20 minutes of video - so you’ll need to offload the cards to a computer. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to load to the computer any faster than tape.
Generally these cameras record in AVCHD, which is a form of MPEG 4 H.264 and can look very very good or very bad, depending on how much compression the camera uses. Newer video editing programs can handle AVCHD including Premiere Elements, Final Cut Studio and Express, and iMovie 08 - but many older programs can’t so you may have to upgrade your software. You will need a fast computer to handle high quality HD recordings though - they’re big and require fast drives and a lot of CPU power to edit.
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Air Date: March 27, 2008
TranscriptCaller Questions
- Ben & Jules, Sydney, NSW
- Ron, Hamilton, ON
- Brian, Kitchener, ON
Yewell's Jewels
- Picnikwindowsmaclinux
Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful online editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. It’s fast, easy, and fun.
Sean's Shinies
- Mio Digiwalker C720t
$450
Mio’s DigiWalker C720t is one of the company’s more recent forays into GPS devices that double as multimedia devices. The GPS comes with a large 4.3-inch screen, which makes it great for display photos and potentially for displaying video…though video playback can be choppy on the device. What’s really nice about the C720t is that it comes with a 2 megapixel camera built in, and allows you to geo-tag your pictures based on GPS coordinates…so you’ll never wonder “Where did I take this picture?” again.
Shiny
- large 4.3-inch touch-sensitive screen
- 2 megapixel camera allows geotagging
- preloaded maps of US and Canada
- media playback
Dull
- battery life could be better
- video streaming can be choppy
-DigiWalker C720t
Mio Technology
Kate’s Tips
- Quintura.com
Quintura provides a new way for you to search for things on the Internet. When you enter a search term, Quintura returns an ordinary list of results on the right-hand side, while on the left it offers a visual map (or “cloud”) of related terms. Click any of these words, and the list of results changes to encompass the new term as well, which can help you narrow your search. The process may sound clunky, but it’s surprisingly effective.