Camera help: Is SD the way to go for video?

GingerMohawk · #1 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 01:06 PM

I all this is my first post here, I no next to nothing about photogrethy so I’ll apologize in advance for that.

I’m looking at buying a new camera and I’m looking for some advice from the people in the know.

I’m looking for a camera that can take good still pictures with flash and more importantly good video that when viewed on my TV will look like VHS standard or better. Really I’m looking for a good camera that is all in one device.

Right I’ve had a look through the forums but can’t seem to find any info on SD type all in one device apart from the link to the first camera; I can feel the disapproval about using static memory for storage of video.

Anyway I’ve been looking at the following two cameras:

Panasonic D-Snap SV-AV100 (are there any other versions of this camera?)

http://shopping.msn.com/reviews/shp/?itemId=24782840

I know the till pictures on this camera are poor but the Mpeg2 is very tempting.

Sanyo VPC-C5 or C6

http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/c...productID=1151

All round wise this camera looks the best.

What do you all think am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks for any help
GingerMohawk

Marc Peters · #2 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 01:27 PM

Without clicking on the links to look at the cameras, I'll give you some generic words from experience: if you want to edit your video material, invest in a miniDV camcorder. If you want an instant fix of video, consider a Mini DVD camera. If you're interested mainly in stills, go for a camera that can record video too.

Now from the links it seems you're really looking at the latter. The problem with these is that the video footage doesn't conform to standards: the video is typically highly compressed MPEG4, with a frame rate of 30fps and a small frame size. This is fine if you want to play thevideo back on a PC, but can cause a few headaches if you want to transfer this to DVD for playback on a TV.

GingerMohawk · #3 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 01:32 PM

Ah right, thanks, back to el drawing board then.

cheers

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 01:52 PM

Just my opinion, but why not go with a MiniDV camera that takes stills?

GingerMohawk · #5 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 01:54 PM

I'd rather use SD for both the pictures and video, I'm lazy that way

Mark W · #6 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 04:03 PM

Good stills camera and video camera in one device ? Cant be done, too many conflicting needs. Get seperate devices - convergence usually means far too many compromises.