HD Camcorder and Sony Vegas

[John Rofrano]

[Bob Hobart] “The thing is, early in the evolution of HDD camcorders I was aware of a view, probably uniformed, that there were “issues” around successfully transferring and editing HDD video in Sony Vegas.”

I am assuming that the term “HD Camcorder” in your title refers to “Hard Drive Camcorder” and not “High Definition Camcorder” by the use of the abbreviation “HDD” in your post which stands for “Hard Disk Drive”.

The “issue” with early HDD Camcorders that were SD had nothing to do with Vegas and everything to do with the fact that they were “soccer mom” cameras meant to just shoot and view with no editing. They record a very loss DVD MPEG2 format that doesn’t stand up well to editing and re-redering. Anyone wishing to edit their footage with any program (not just Vegas) should not purchase one of these cameras.

I can’t imagine that you would want to buy an SD camcorder in 2012 but there are issues with HD (High Definition) camcorders as well. You should be very careful to buy a camcorder that shoots an “industry standard” format. Right now that would mean HDV (which is miniDV tape based) and AVCHD (which is file based). Since you want a camera with a hard drive that means you should look for an AVCHD camcorder. If you buy a camcorder that is not AVCHD, then it can be hit-or-miss whether Vegas can reassemble the footage and edit it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Bob Hobart]

Thanks for your expert advice John. Yes, I am referring to HDD camcorders – sorry about the confusing title. For the convenience of security and storage I’ve been using miniDV tapes for years, most recently with a Canon HV30 and Vegas V10. My overseas vacations often generate 10-12 tapes (much of which ends up ‘on the cutting room floor’) so rather than dragging all that around with me I am considering a high capacity HDD camcorder (AVCHD of course).