DVD Camcorder...Nice!

[Trevor Schell]

Hi!

I finally received my Hitachi DZMV100A DVD-Ram Camcorder which I had ordered about one month ago.
This is the first of it's kind and according to the Hitachi Rep, the first one to land in Canada.

This Camcorder records video on a DVD-Ram Video disc which holds 2.8 GB (30 minutes) on each side for a total of 4.7 GB and 1 hour of video. The camera features a 48X digital zoom and 12X optical zoom. You can record live video or take snapshots with it's 1 megapixel CCD feature.
It's very compact and has a nice 3.5 color LCD screen to view your recordings.
I was suprised to find a remote control in the box too. This gives you total control of the unit from the seating area.
Accessing areas of the disc is super fast as the forward and reverse skip buttons quickly take you to the segments where you had paused in the recording. No more waiting for a tape to rewind or fast foward. This is instant at the push of a button.

So far I love my DVD Camcorder.



Hitachi DZ-MV100A



DVD-RAM Video



3.5" LCD screen



Top View




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Kevin P]

Sounds like a cool toy Trev, it makes my "state of the art" MiniDV seem quaint by comparison!

I'm curious, does it use standard 5-inch DVD-RAM discs or are they smaller (3-inch?) 5 inch discs would make for a bulky camcorder I would think.

Remotes are common with camcorders these days. Even my old RCA Hi8 (from about 5 years ago) has a remote.

Now you need a Panny RP91 (DVD-RAM compatible) so you can play your discs on your DVD player.

KJP




Official Computer Geek and Techno-Wiz Guru of HTGuide - Visit Tower of Power
My HT Site

[Lex]

Cool toy Trev! Great for shots of the kids.

Kevin, conrats on post 700 above! Now why did you go and give Trev an idea for yet another upgrade? lol.

Lev

[Bing Fung]

Cool, now get your self a Pioneer A03 DVD-R+W and your Steven Spielberg




Bing

[Bing Fung]

Alright, who double clicked my mouse?




Bing

[George Bellefontaine]

Looks like hours of fun ahead.

Okay- who double clicked Bing's mouse ?




My Homepage!

[Trevor Schell]

Bing,,Please don't double click your mouse anymore,,that is completely annoying.

get your self a Pioneer A03 DVD-R+W

Where do I find this?
I assume it is for the computer.
Thanks.

Now you need a Panny RP91 (DVD-RAM compatible) so you can play your discs on your DVD player.

That will be on the list too.

I'm curious, does it use standard 5-inch DVD-RAM discs or are they smaller (3-inch?) 5 inch discs would make for a bulky camcorder I would think.

They are the 3 1/2" size. They are in a plastic enclosure like a floppy disc for the computer. They can be taken out of the plastic case easily by pulling two clips on the side of the case and pulling forward the tray. This way you can insert it into the DVD player for playback.

I would think that the DVD-Ram drive for the computer takes in the enire disc still in the case but not sure.
They gave me a drive model# that is compatible but I could not find it on the Hitachi website to see how it looks and other information on it.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[P-Dub]

From looking at the spec sheet of the Pioneer A03 DVD writer, it can not read DVD-Ram. However, what you could do is connect your cam via firewire to your computer, I'm assuming it's got that connection, and just copy the data onto the HD and then do the editing there, then write it onto a DVD-R and that should be playable on any standalone DVD player.

I've seen this drive on Futureshop's web site for $1k, and on Atic.ca for $920. It is an internal drive so it will fit inside your computer case, and it will also do CDRW as well. I know a friend that was going to be buying this exact drive, I'll see if he's bought it yet and where he got it from. I've also wondered what comes with the package in terms of editing software. I'll check with him on that as well.

So you may not need the Panasonic 91, if you go through the effort of editing on the Pioneer drive and then output on regular DVD. In the mean time, you can always use the camcorder to watch footage.

Did I tell you that is one cool toy.

[rlabarge]

Whoa, lets take a step back.

The Pioneer A03 drive is a wonderful DVD recorder. It will set you back about $800. It burns DVD-R for General media which sell for about $10 per blank, and will work in most, but not all consumer DVD-Video players.

The DVD-RAM cartridge that comes with the camcorder will not work in the vast majority of consumer DVD-Video players on the market today. There are two fundamental problems that make DVD-RAM discs unreadable by most DVD players.

(1) Most DVD-Video players simply dont support DVD-RAM as an input format.

(2) The Hitachi camcorder does not store the recorded data in the DVD-Video format, which is required by DVD-Video players. Hitachi's web site states that these discs can be read by new DVD-ROM/DVD-RAM drives, but makes no mention of any DVD-Video players that the discs will work on. The data is stored on the disc in the MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 format (depending on play length selected).

So when Trevor wants to play back his recordings on his DVD-Video player this is what he will need to do.

(1) Connect the Hitachi DVD-RAM Camcorder to a Windows PC using a USB port, or use the Hitachi DVD-ROM drive that comes with the camcorder. (Not sure if Trevor got this drive or not)

(2) Import the audio/video content from the DVD-RAM cartridge into the PC using a standard video editor such as Adobe Premiere.

(3) Use an entry level DVD authoring tool such as Sonic Solutions DVDit! or MyDVD to create a valid DVD-Video disc image from the content.

(4) Buy a Pioneer DVR-A03 drive, connect it to the PC, and transfer the DVD-Video disc image generated in step 3 to a blank DVD-R for General disc.

(5) Play back the DVD-R in a DVD-Video player. DVD-R for General discs will work in about 90% of the consumer players on the market today.

Not quite as easy as we would like - eh?




Ralph LaBarge
Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
rlabarge@alphadvd.com

[Trevor Schell]

Ralph,,That does sound like a lot of work.
Thanks for the info.
I will definately get the DVD-ram drive for easy playback on the computer.

I also like the idea of recording it to a disc to play in the DVD player.This is something I will look into.
In the meantime I will be connecting the Camcorder to the TV via S-video for playback.
I love the skip ahead feature.
You can make your own chapters simply by pausing when needed while recording.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

Explained well Ralph....

If the Hitachi has an IEEE 1394 (firewire) you should also get a PCI firewire card for faster transfer rates (from camera to PC), edit on the PC and then burn your own DVD's with the A03.

Actually this technique should work well for anyone with a DV camcorder as well.




Bing