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Ready to upgrade camcorder

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Ready to upgrade camcorder

Postby bobfranz » Mon May 07, 2018 10:17 pm

I've hung on to my Panasonic HX-WA03 for a year or two too long. (Because I love the "pistol grip" and it's great for snow skiing video.) My question here is about specs for a new camera vs. specific cameras. I did some very basic and crude testing a year or two ago and concluded that, with the Panasonic, I was getting better quality final product by using 60fps, regardless of the other settings on my matrix of tests. As I look for a replacement, I'm inclined to search for a camera that shoots 60fps at 1920x1080p or 4K, though my initial scan found 30fps (not 60) on a lot of camcorder choices, at least at the sub $1,000 price point that I'm searching.

Am I missing something? Should I switch to shooting at 1920x1080p or 4K at 30fps?
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Re: Ready to upgrade camcorder

Postby Steve Grisetti » Tue May 08, 2018 7:22 am

Kind of depends on what you're trying to do, bob.

How are you going to share your finished videos? If you're going to share them on DVD, then shooting in 4K or at a high video rate is probably overkill. If you're outputting BluRays, you might justify it. If you're sharing to YouTube, it's up to you. 4K can give you a sharper video on YouTube, however, by the time YouTube processes it, it won't look at that much better on a typical 1920x1080 computer monitor.

As for faster frame rates, the difference is much more noticeable if you're shooting a lot of action or sports. If you're just shooting home movies or if you're just planning to output a DVD or YouTube video from your footage, you won't see a lot of difference between video shot at 60p and video shot in 30 fps.
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Re: Ready to upgrade camcorder

Postby sidd finch » Tue May 08, 2018 11:13 am

From video University:

HD is actually a video dimension, not an indication of video quality. With video cameras, there are multiple factors that determine the actual quality of the video. And one of the biggest ones is the video bit rate at which a camera records.

Bit rates are defined by mega bits per second mbps. The higher the bit rate of a video, the higher the video quality. Video on the web has a bit rate of around 800 kbps (less than 1 mbps). Video on DVD has a bit rate between 4-8 mbps, or roughly 4-8 times higher quality than web video. And video on Blu-Ray has a bit rate of around 25 mbps, or roughly 25 times the quality of web video.

The higher the bit rate you record at, the better your footage will look in the end. The higher the bit rate the more expensive the camera.

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Re: Ready to upgrade camcorder

Postby bobfranz » Tue May 08, 2018 5:45 pm

Thanks. Both these replies will help me decide.
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