High Definition: Redux

Yesterday I more or less went off about a couple of items from December Issue of PCWORLD. I re-read the article last night. I was hoping that my initial impression would be softened a bit. Alas, I was disappointed. The first issue comes within the first column of the article on the first page.

You can edit HDV content on a computer with a modest 2-GHz Intel Pentium CPU and 2GB of RAM, and you can use more video editing applications (including Microsoft Windows Movie Maker HD and Apple iMovie). But the power required for AVCHD typically starts with a 2.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad system.

The main issue comes from the last line, in bold. This is total horse crap! I have edited and rendered video files and DVDs that started with the output AVCHD files from my SR-12 on both of my laptops. Granted, they are newer so they are both Core 2 Duo cpus. One is a 2.0-GHz with 2GB of RAM and the other is a 2.4-GHz with 3GB of RAM. I had no issues and I got what I expected to be reasonable render times. I am willing to bet that my old HP laptop would have been up to the task just fine. It was a 3.0-Ghz P4 Northwood with 2GB of ram. A system that if I had it today would be 4+ years old. I will give the author that HDV can likely be edited with more applications out of the box than AVCHD can, but I don’t consider this a drawback at all. Movie Maker and iMovie are “nice” but they are very basic to begin with.

The applications that were mentioned, Pinnacle Studio Plus 12 (on Amazon for $125) and Adobe Premiere Elements 7 (Amazon for $90 or bundled with Photoshop Elements for $140) are really feature rich and will allow for a lot more flexibility when working with creating video projects. My personal favorite is Sony Vegas (currently $455 on Amazon) is better still AND Sony DVD Architect 5 is FREE (at least it was when I got it) if you have a license for Vegas. I am going to revisit the cost analysis that I did yesterday and include some software.

On the storage issue. The article claims that the SR-12 has enough room for 14 hours at the highest quality setting. Fair enough. The SR-11, the 60 GB version would then have enough room for 7 (this camera will come into play later). The author says

Its image quality and storage capacity are impressive, but unless you need to record for hours without a break, those advantages may not justify the camera’s price of $1300.

Yes, the storage size is impressive. What the author did NOT think about is going to be a big deal for me. Family vacations. I will be honest and say that there may be a time when I leave the laptop at home and I want to make sure I can capture all of the cool things and memories from the vacation. If I used tape, I would either have to cart around enough tapes for what I think I would use or hope that where I was would have them for sale at a reasonable price (knowing that if they are $20 online as shown yesterday, I might end up paying $30 in the store). Much easier to only have to worry about the battery being charged than if I have enough tape. No switching either. I just keep going. I wouldn’t call it a disadvantage.

So you say you don’t need 14 hours? You say 7 or so would be better? The list price Sony’s website shows is $1200, but they are currently selling it for $1000. A frugal shopper could probably find deals for a few hundred less on top of that. This price puts it on par / equal to the Canon Vixia HV30 (the mini-dv camera tested by PCWORLD) for price.

Here is my price comparison / price information table.

I don’t consider the mini-dv to be the “superior” choice. At least not as easily as PCWORLD seems to have proclaimed it. There are many MANY factors and the disadvantages that PCW seems to claim don’t really seem to be disadvantages in my mind. A few hundred extra dollars for having easily transferable video in high definition and a boat load of storage if I am not able to transfer all of my data in a timely fashion? No changing tapes or lugging extra tapes around. No running out of tape in a pinch.

Mini-DV for consuper and pro-sumer usage is on its way out. Don’t invest money in this technology as it is going to slip away very soon. When was the last time you bought a movie on VHS?