Camcorders
I’ve finally returned to the world of camcorders after leaving it in the mid-90s. Back then, I had a fairly bulky analogue video camera, a relic from the 1980s, but it worked well enough and recorded onto VCR tapes that could be viewed on the television. There was no question of moving video footage to a computer, at least not for me. In fact, I didn’t even own a computer till 1995 and I doubt whether the Pentium-90 that I had would have been capable of processing analogue output from the camera. It was so bulky that I left the camera behind when I moved to Singapore in January 1996 and that was my last sustained contact with video cameras.
Digital video took over in the 21st century of course and over the past few years, I’ve certainly downloaded and edited digital videos taken with camera phones and digital cameras. I’d always felt that the 30fps 640×480 MPEG video taken with my Sony DSC-W1 digital camera (a bit of a dinosaur now at 5.1 megapixels) was good enough for short clips. However, pressure to record longer family events eventually led me to consider the purchase of a camcorder. What to buy? My investigations revealed three basic categories, defined in terms of the mode of data storage. These were mini-DV (digital audio tape), hard disk and DVD. I was dubious about the idea of a hard disk in a camcorder. I just imagined the recording heads crashing into the disk and rendering the whole device useless. I’d read that the DVD recordings were difficult to edit but ideal for playing back on a computer or DVD player. In the end I decided on the oldest standard of all, the mini-DV, that is not all that different from the first camcorder that I had except that the tapes are a lot smaller and the data is recorded in digital and not analogue form.
Once the mini-DV was decided upoon, there was the issue of what model and specifications. I inclined toward Sony from the beginning because my old digital camera had served me well and I opted for a single CCD (Charge Coupled Device) with a resolution of 1 megapixel. Of course, there are Sony models with 3 CCDs and 4 megapixel resolution that provide high definition output but I didn’t want to spend too much money and besides, we don’t have a HD television set at the moment. The DCR-HC62E was an economical choice coming in at Rp4,175,00 or about US$450 and it was getting very good reviews. This price by the way was through www.glodokshop.com, an Internet-based company here in Jakarta. The AGIS store in Pondok Indah Mall was wanting Rp4,999,000.
On arrival, the device was easy to use, producing clear video output to the television and also taking 1 megapixel (1152 x 864) still shots through the Memory Stick Duo card (I needed to purchase a 2Gb card separately at the local computer store). The problem came when I wanted to transfer the video to my laptop. I’d assumed that the supplied USB cable could be used to transfer the video but as I discovered this was intended to transfer the still images only. For video transfer, an i.link cable is required and this is not supplied of course. The name that Sony uses is a bit confusing because what Sony calls i.link is called Firewire by Apple and DV by camcorder manufacturers. All of these however, refer to the same IEEE1394 interface standard.
In fact there are two commonly used standards: one is IEEE1394a and the other is IEEE1394b. To explain the difference, I’ll quote from an external source:
Firewire 400 | 1394a
Also called i.link or DV, you get almost 400mbps as a top speed, but cable lengths are limited to about 15 feet. There are two connectors, a small 4-pin and a larger 6-pin connector. The 4-pin does not have power connections, so peripherals cannot be cable-powered, they must have their own power supply.Firewire 800 | 1394b
Firewire 800 operates at a maximum of almost 800Mbps (100MBps!) and uses a 9-pin Connector. Cable lengths can be much longer than Firewire 400 (IEEE1394a) and Fiber Optic systems can run up to 100 meters.
So the i.link cable is an optional extra. No problem I thought, a trip to the local computer store should solve the problem. I was quickly shown a 4-pin Firewire cable that looked like it would do the trick. I bought it and took it home. However, I was disturbed by the price of Rp25,000 that I paid because I thought if the cable is that cheap, why didn’t Sony just throw it in with the other bundled accessories. My misgivings were confirmed when I got it home. Sure enough the software that Sony supplied for the laptop didn’t recognise the cable. I was disappointed but next day I confidently set out to the Sony Centre at Pondok Indah Mall. When I arrived, there was a space where the cables used to be but that space was empty and there was no telling when the space might get filled up again. A search of other stores in the mall proved fruitless. So the magic cable still eludes me but the search continues. Stay tuned.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: camcorders Sony DV i.link Firewire
