I want to buy a good camcorder which can offer good image as well as convenience and long time stability. Lots of people recommend flash memory based camcorders.
But some people also mentioned editing will be difficult for canon HF100 or Panasonic HDC-SD9. Especially, I need a powerful computer to do it, not a normal laptop.
I used to edit tape based video with laptop. It is fine. Before I purchase, I just want to know why flash memory camcorder needs more powerful computer.
Question 1:
Is powerful computer a must for all tapeless camcorder, such as HDD, flash memory? Or it is just because high-definition tapeless camcorder needs good computer? I notice the word "AVCHD". Does the trouble come from this guy?
Question 2:
Does Canon HF-100 or Panasonic HDC-SD7 offer low definition option which I can edit with slower computer?
thanks a lot!
Flash or HDD doesn’t mean you need a faster computer. Advanced Video Codec HD (AVCHD) does. Basically, it is MPEG-4 compression applied to HD video, which causes the increase in processor power, since the smaller file sizes vs. tape-based HDV recording uses more compression and takes longer to decode during editing. I really don’t know if the HF-100 or SD7 have an SD setting, but it seems it is quite likely. At any rate, you can change recording settings, and I know the HF-100 can do 720p (in fact, if you don’t have a SDHC card it only records 720p). Hope this helps!
Flash or HDD doesn’t mean you need a faster computer. Advanced Video Codec HD (AVCHD) does. Basically, it is MPEG-4 compression applied to HD video, which causes the increase in processor power, since the smaller file sizes vs. tape-based HDV recording uses more compression and takes longer to decode during editing. I really don’t know if the HF-100 or SD7 have an SD setting, but it seems it is quite likely. At any rate, you can change recording settings, and I know the HF-100 can do 720p (in fact, if you don’t have a SDHC card it only records 720p). Hope this helps!
References :
The AVCHD compression algorythm is quite a serious compression, therefore requiring quite a lot of CPU power to decompress it on the fly. The reason the camera can compress this is that it has a hardware compression chip – something your desktop PC won’t have. Therefore a Core 2 Quad with 2 GB or more RAM is the recommended minimum for decompressing and working with AVCHD formats, however a Core 2 Quad with 4 GB RAM is recommended *usable* spec.
References :