{"id":49,"date":"2008-08-10T15:21:57","date_gmt":"2008-08-10T19:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2008-08-10T15:21:57","modified_gmt":"2008-08-10T19:21:57","slug":"avchd-about-that-camera-you-want-to-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/10\/avchd-about-that-camera-you-want-to-buy\/","title":{"rendered":"AVCHD – About That Camera You Want To Buy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2006, Sony and Panasonic got together and created a new, consumer-level, high-definition video format called Advanced Video Codec High Definition<\/strong> (AVCHD).<\/p>\n

These days, when consumers are thinking about buying a high-definition video camera, AVCHD<\/strong> is likely the “type of camera” they’ll come across. But there are a few pitfalls regarding AVCHD cameras you need to know about…and I’m going to cover them here.<\/p>\n

First, all AVCHD cameras will record to one of three types of media; hard drives, Flash memory or DVD. And that’s the first issue you need to know about. When recording to these types of media, your video is compressed. Anytime a video is compressed, it loses quality. And by taking this hit in quality, you may be disappointed with what your final video looks like (in fact, many purists insist that AVCHD isn’t even high-definition video because of this).<\/p>\n

By comparison, HDV cameras<\/strong> record to tape…where generally…there is no loss in quality. HDV cameras also give you the option of recording to an external hard drive, like a Firestore<\/a>, where again, there is no loss in quality (and you gain the benefits of fast “direct to edit” recording).<\/p>\n

Second, AVCHD video can be a headache to edit with video editing software (actually all high-definition video can be a headache because it requires major computer horsepower). But AVCHD video can cause unique problems within video editing software. While all modern video editing titles can now handle AVCHD (Final Cut, Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, etc.), that doesn’t mean they’ll always play well with video shot from a specific camera. In fact, with a few AVCHD cameras, you have to use the proprietary video editing software they supply to edit your footage.<\/p>\n

And third, well, it’s a combination of 1 and 2 above. You’re all excited about your new “high-definition” camera and all the breathtaking web video you’re going to create with it. But after you’ve shot all your footage, reality is going to set in. What’s the reality? Well, here’s a CNET review that sums it up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My recommendation?<\/strong> If you want to go high-definition, particularly for the web, stick with HDV cameras (the ones that use mini-DV tapes). You’ll get the best quality and the fewest amount of headaches. Yes, tapes are considered endangered technology…but they also happen to be the only format pro’s use.<\/p>\n

The HDV camera I recommend (and personally use) is the Canon Vixia HV30<\/strong>. You can check it out here on Amazon<\/a>. Both pro’s and hobbyist’s consistently give it the highest rating in a crowded field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in 2006, Sony and Panasonic got together and created a new, consumer-level, high-definition video format called Advanced Video Codec High Definition (AVCHD). These days, when consumers are thinking about buying a high-definition video camera, AVCHD is likely the “type of camera” they’ll come across. But there are a few pitfalls regarding AVCHD cameras you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[8],"tags":[35,39,38,36,37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}