We have a 10 year old Hi8 camcorder and plan, sometime, to get a more modern one. For some reason we assumed a hard disk based one was the way to go, e.g. I replaced my Walkman with an MP3 player.
I recently read an article in the NY Times that placed a doubt in my mind. The journalist was advocating mini-DV over hard-disk based camcorders for the following reasons.
I recently read an article in the NY Times that placed a doubt in my mind. The journalist was advocating mini-DV over hard-disk based camcorders for the following reasons.
- Physically, mini-DVs require less space. He reckoned his drawerful of tapes would require multiple external hard drives which cost more, as secondary storage, and consume more storage space in your home.
- Any hard-disk based camcorder utilises some form of image compression for storage. This leads to a reduction in quality.
- Mini-DV tapes will 'decompose' over time but so too will secondary hard drives. In addition, external hard drives are prone to disk errors.