Consumer HD camcorders: Why?

Ryno

Does anyone have any experience with the new crop of consumer HD camcorders? As a gear geek with a kid (lots of baby videos), I'd love to justify this new toy but I can't.

Even though the camcorders themselves are coming down in price quite rapidly, very few people that I know can even watch non-broadcast HD media. On top of that, the Blu-ray burners are still super expensive, and the media is very pricey as well. I mean, what the hell can I do with one of these sweet little $600 HD camcorders when I can't even get the HD onto media that most people can watch?

I mean, just how does this make sense:

HD Camcorder - $600-$800. - Sweet! Not cheap, but doesn't break the bank. Great quality, but with this price it is obviously aimed at consumers.

Blu-Ray burner - $300-500. - Ouch! And the scary thing is that these have just dropped dramatically. Not a conducive price for the average consumer.

One single Blu-ray burnable disc - $15. - Ridiculous! How the hell am I going to afford to send out 15 of these things to family who are begging to see baby videos? I can't.

And on top of that, of all the members of my extended family, many of whom are very technologically savvy, only my brother actually has a Blu-ray player (PS3). So no one else could even watch the videos anyway. So what is the point of even having consumer-priced HD camcorders? Could someone explain it to me? I just can't even see the point of buying one of these things until the damn media drops to no more than a couple of bucks each.

Also, with the sheer volume of data that HD demands, exactly how are you supposed to back things up when most of the HD camcorders don't even use affordable media for recording? Most seem to be switching to internal harddrives or expensive SD cards. If I move this all to my computer and have a harddrive failure (have had several over the years), I've got no easy way to back stuff up. Ack! This is just annoying.

Give me affordable Blu-ray discs for the love of all that is holy!

SouL

Homemade HD pr0n.

Ferg

seems to be the natural way of introducing technology. CD burners and blank CDs were insanely expensive when they debuted, as were DVD burners and blank DVDs. Why should the newest generation of media be any different? Give it some time.... They gotta start somewhere, and the first generations of a new media type usually follow a pretty steep downward price curve after the first couple years of actual consumer use.

Joshua Stubbles

SouL wrote: »

Homemade HD pr0n.

lulz. my first thought as well.

ElysiumGX

First, justify cinema quality home videos.

Jonathan

I had one for a while, and used it for practicing composting, for family gatherings, etc. but later sold it because I didn't use it enough to justify the price.

I plan on buying one later, but don't really need one right now.

thomasp

well, you can always down-convert your material for the output to DVD, etc. it will surely take a few years until blu-ray and HDTV are common household equipment. in the meantime it is a bit cumbersome to work with unless you are into high video resolution and it's benefits for editing and compositing and all that lot.

then why not pick up just a quality SD camcorder that records to DVD if you need one now?

notman

I'd say base it on how long you plan on having the videos you're recording. Sure, the HD media isn't completely mainstream yet, but next year and beyond, it will be the standard. So, for instance, if you want to do home movies of the kids, you'll want to be able to view those when the kids are teens (or older). When you go to play it at that time, do you want it to be in standard definition?
On the same note, if you don't have plenty of spare cash, then it's probably not worth it at the moment. Standard definition will still be viewable in the future, so there's no need to take food off the table to make films for the future. We all know it's going to get cheaper and better with time anyway. Hope that makes sense

Illusions

ElysiumGX wrote: »

First, justify cinema quality home videos.

Film students who can't afford the top end HD cameras yet still want to shoot HD footage... :poly133:

Ryno

thomasp wrote: »

then why not pick up just a quality SD camcorder that records to DVD if you need one now?

Already have one, and use it regularly. But I've also had an HD tv for 4 years, and it makes me sad to not get the most out of my video.

Regarding the issue of why worry about quality of home movies; Why not? I mean my kid's history is a little more important to me than the quality of some forgettable blockbuster popcorn flick. This is something that great grandkids may someday watch. Why wouldn't I want to get the best quality that I could? I mean filming with an HD camcorder isn't any harder than with a SD one.

Cthogua

hehehe I'm glad theres no HD videos of me as a baby. Not only is this embarassing...its embarassing in HD! Look at the detail in that crying angry baby face! and here we have an HD video of the time you got a GI JOE stuck up your nose! Innit cute! you can even tell that it was Snake Eyes!

Hehehe, Sorry I suppose that wasn't terribly helpful, but it sounds like you've outlined for yourself pretty compelling reasons not to get one right now.

EarthQuake

And when you do actually have great grandkids, they will be shocked and appauled that you're trying to make them watch videos from something as archaic as a blueray disk. Theny you'll mumble on something about betamax, and fall asleep drooling.

Ryno

Yes, but if I at least have some high quality blackmail video on some of the kids and grandkids, at least I'll be able to demand a little respect!

It's just odd that HD has been around for close to a decade, the camcorders have been around for several years, and Blu-Ray is well established, yet we don't have any way to put our own personal videos on a high def format that can be viewed and shared easily.

It seems that once most new technologies are at the consumer level for 2 or more years, at least the media gets down to a semi-reasonable price. Oh well, maybe next year.