Reactionary

I’ve resisted the camcorder set for ages, but when shopping Amazon on Black Friday while at work, I saw a deal on a Sony Handycam I couldn’t resist. It’s a Mini DV and I’m still not 100% sure if I’ll keep it yet. But it’s very tiny and the physical UI is fine. The GUI of its software interface is abysmal… but then I can’t expect everyone to be Apple. Actually, Canon has a great UI and they start even from the low end with fully-manual capabilities. Maybe I should have gone with a Canon, even if Sony’s always been a leader in the field. But.. Sony and the latest DRM fiasco… I don’t know. I may return it yet and put that money towards the cost of the new digital camera I want, a real one, the Canon EOS 20D. At $1200+ it costs several times the price of the itty bitty camcorder I got, but a third of it down would be a third I don’t have to save.

Anyway, all that second-guessing and vacillating aside, I have yet to really take it for a spin. I’ve never done anything video other than taking screen grabs from DVDs and I don’t understand all the codecs and compressions and bitrates and all that. I’ve also never used iMovie since I’ve never had anything to toss in there. Yesterday, I finally hooked up the Firewire 4 to 6 pin cable I had to buy separately to the camera and computer and uploaded a little clip to the computer. It’s about a minute long and weighs 170MB+. Ouch. I also played around a little with how the computer interacts with the camera. I haven’t installed any of Sony’s software (dear beginner Mac users, never install third party software unless you are sure you need it, chances are Apple’s already taken care of it for you). It was kind of odd working the camera through iMovie. At first I didn’t get why the clip wasn’t showing up in the camera and then it eventually dawned on me that I had to rewind the tape. I hadn’t though of the Mini DV tape as being actual TAPE. Where does the “digital” come in, then? I’m a bit confused but hopefully before too long things will make more sense.

After I rewound it, I could download it into the computer with no problems, working the camera like a VCR right through the controls on the computer screen. I guess digital video hasn’t come such a long way as digital photography. Rewinding seems so arcane. While iMovie works the camera painlessly without the needs for installing any drivers, iChat will not see it. It sees it in that it knows a camera is connected but it will not show any footage even when the camera’s on and in recording mode. I may have to go to Apple’s support site about that. I know iChat is supposed to work with webcams but it’s supposed to be compatible with all FireWire camcorders as well. There may be something I need to do to get the two to shake hands. I know that it sees it because it cues me up as being video capable but there’s no picture when I go to change my user picture.

I intend to take it home for Christmas and be unimaginably cheesy. Or I may return it and trade it in towards the cost of my 20D which I desperately want and can’t afford. But I’ll get it someday because I need a real camera that’s digital as well. This Powershot isn’t cutting it anymore though I love its smallness.

Posted on December 9th, 2005 under General, Tech •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed