by Duane A. Biever
Published in the September 2000 issue of microCHIP
If you have been wondering about how some of the magic that you have seen in the movies over the past couple of years is accomplished, and if you have been lusting after a camcorder, read this. It will change your life, and your spouse. Your life will be devoted to learning a new piece of software, a new camera, and a new way of using the state-of-the-art computer which you suddenly can no longer do without. Your spouse will change from the kind, docile and understanding person you have known for many years into a suspicious and jealous person whose understanding of your needs is suddenly reduced to negative values.
You have discovered that your new interest is in creating your own videos for the VCR and that you no longer splice pieces of tape together the way you did with your 8 mm film camera forty years ago. Technology has passed you by. But that can be fixed. The first difficulty in getting started is overcoming the reluctance of your mate to understand your need to upgrade your aging equipment. And to cooperate with you in this new and exciting venture. Once that is accomplished, the rest is gravy. First consideration: you can't be a desktop movie editor without a DV camera. And you can't be a desktop movie editor with the 14 MHz computer running DOS 6.0 and Microsoft Paint. The computer must be at least a 400 mhz and preferably faster. You must be running Windows 98. And those inexpensive analog camcorders will not hack it. It has got to be a digital camcorder. Are you still with me? If you are, know this. You are going to be laying out major bucks to do this and you will still have only a starter kit-nothing close to what Disney and Hollywood uses to issue their products. But with a couple of thousand dollars, you can obtain a very respectable system and turn out some magical stuff that will astound your friends.
Digital camcorders are offered by all of the major names in the business: Panasonic, JVC, Canon and Sony. Sony's entry is something they call the Digital8. It uses either the standard 8 mm tape or, for high resolution digital, the more expensive Hi-8. The others all use the new, smaller tape called the Mini-DV. This latter is several dollars more than the Hi-8 tapes. All of the cameras are full of features, affordable and offer some uniquely powerful functions. Being one of the most affordable DV camcorders on the market, Sony's Digital8 cameras also prove to be among the most versatile. This is the camcorder that I would strongly recommend, for reasons which follow.
To venture down the path of desktop video editing, you'll get a cable with your Sony Digital8 camcorder to link it with your computer via a serial port. You already have the serial port, no problem. But eventually you will want/need a FireWire equipped computer. The FireWire interface is estimated to be about twenty times faster, and if you are loading seventy-five MB's of data into your computer, the serial port will no longer keep you happy. You will also want video editing software and a DV device. But I anticipate. Basically, DV cameras record video in the DV format. Once in DV, your video is now data and the camera can stream this data to your computer via its serial or FireWire port. The DV data stream is a constant 3.7 MB/sec, which can be adequately handled by any current system. Once captured, DV data is then saved as an .AVI movie, still in the DV format. The really cool part is that during this process, your video remains unchanged. You can take your DV footage and transfer back and forth between camera and computer and never lose a single byte which means absolutely no loss of quality. Digital8 cameras can use standard 8mm videotapes which will not give high quality results but will work for you in a pinch.
Unlike other DV cameras that use MiniDV, 8mm offers an affordable solution without giving up much ground on quality. While MiniDV offers higher-grade media, 8mm can be much less expensive. If quality is a real concern with 8mm, easily acquired Hi-8 will give a high quality result. One real big feature with the Sony Digital8 is that it can not only play and record DV on 8mm tapes, but can also play 8mm analog video. This is big news for people with older 8mm cameras. This means that all those analog 8mm tapes can be played on Sony's Digital8 cameras. So, not only will you still be able to view the old tapes with the new camera, but you'll be able to also stream them via FireWire to your computer, just as if they were recorded in DV.
The implications of this are immense. Not only can the Digital8 camera convert analog 8mm video into DV, but it can also do it on the fly. Even more impressive is that the video signal is held in check. As it's well known, when you duplicate an analog video signal, you get a "dub" effect, where video gets fuzzy and loses its integrity. Bringing the video directly to DV in this way helps to reduce the "dub" effect. Anyone who has made a copy of their analog tapes for a friend has noticed that the quality is not quite as good as when first viewed. And make a copy of a copy? Forget it. Sony's Digital8 cameras are basically all the same and only differ with the external LCD. Other than the LCD options, all cameras have the same features and specs. The cameras offer most of Sony's popular features, such as full Nightshot, a color view finder, Steadyshot, 360x digital zoom, lithium-ion batteries which avoid the "memory effect" that has plagued users of the nickel-cadmium batteries. These lithium-ion batteries can be had with a four-hour capacity at $60, eight hour for $100 and twelve hour for $150. And of course, there's the FireWire/i.link serial interface. The camera also offers a mammoth list of digital and picture effects. The good news is that Digital8 cameras have a mount for additional equipment, such as light, microphone and additional IR emitter for the nightshot feature. One function which is a must-have is the photo feature, which allows you to take still video shots of objects. You can fit hundreds of stills on a single 8mm tape. To transfer them to the computer, capture the stills as a movie and then export the individual pictures to computer files. Better yet, with the Model TRV-320, you are provided with a memory stick which can take stills instead of video. Talk about versatility!! Memory Sticks are available in four sizes: 8, 16, 32 and 64 Megabyte capacities for $29, $49, $79 and $139, respectively. The stills can be read from your Palmcorder tape or Stick to the computer, or a memory stick reader can be had for around $80. For about the same price as most digital cameras, you can have a camera with a much larger zoom range, optional lighting, better battery life, a greater picture capacity, the ability to add full video, and the flexibility of capturing either video or stills. So far we've covered transferring DV and analog 8mm video between the camera and the computer.
What happens when you want to bring your finished product to a TV set? Not a problem. You will easily be able to play your work on a TV or transfer it to a VCR. Additionally, you can use the DV camera as a playback/decoder device while editing. When using certain video editing software, you can use a TV as a live video monitor, which will provide an accurate representation of what your work looks like. These features are really nothing special to the Digital8 cameras, as most if not all DV cameras offer these features. The Digital8 cameras, however, do differ in connectivity when it comes to analog input. Very few DV cameras offer this. This allows you to transfer video from a VCR to the DV camcorder. The Digital8's analog connectors are actually input and output connectors. With this, you can save your analog video from analog camera or VCR onto the Digital8 camera, then play it back to your computer, edit it and save it back to your Digital8 as digital format. Sony's Digital8 cameras are not only affordable, but their versatility helps bridge the ever-widening gulf between the analog and DV worlds. Your spouse will never wholly understand what it was that drove you in the direction you took. She/he will simply have to accept who you are. And you will have to bear the burden of being misunderstood and under-appreciated-and a master of the art of video editing-the master of your universe.
Ed. note: A related Website, recommended by Duane:
Digital Duo's webpage http://www.digitalduo.com
Digital Duo is the independent, irreverent video review
of all things digital. Every week on Public Television, hosts
Stephen Manes of Forbes Magazine and PC World and Susan Gregory
Thomas, a nationally syndicated columnist, cut through the hype
and show you how the latest innovations of the electronic age
really work—and how they don't. They bring you the world
of digital technology, warts and all—the good, the bad, and
the ugly. They tell you which products to save and which ones
to delete, but they're not afraid to disagree.
Duane's comment about "Digital Duo's" review of
digital video: For the Duo and the piece on digital camcorders--they
were not very encouraging in discussing the Sony Digital-8. A
point they did not make was the fact that 1.) the Sonys will play
and record on standard 8mm as well as the hi definition Digital-8
tapes and 2.) they can accept input from analog cameras, save
to Digital-8 tapes. For purposes of home video tape editing and
"splicing," of several year's analog VHS-C tapes via
the computer, this is biiiiiggggg. No other camcorder maker provides
this feature, which was overlooked by the Duo. I bought a Sony
Digital-8 after finding a review on the internet which explained
this feature and how it worked.
I enjoy the show very much and the above criticism in no way diminishes
my enthusiasm for the show.
Return to list of microCHIP articles