videorecorders - info summary

[Barbara Pearson]

Dear Edy,

I'll just add a second to your report.

We bought a Sony digital 8 camcorder  2 years ago.
It was less expensive and our needs are fairly limited.
There have been 2 problems: the eject mechanism was
taxed by our playing tapes back through the camera
and it had to be fixed (by the dealer at fairly great
inconvenience); and the tripod attachment
is where the tape gets changed.  You have to really
practice to be able to dismount the camera from the
tripod, change the tape, and remount it, without
losing too much of the event you're taping.

On the other hand, the output medium is convenient.
We had a professional photographer recording
at the same time onto mini-DVs.  We couldn't figure out a
way to even view their tapes without a huge investment,
so we had them put them on VHS.

I just mention them because these were things one needs
to think about in advance, and no one reminded us to.

Good luck,
Barbara




On Friday, November 7, 2003, at 10:30 AM, edy veneziano wrote:

> Thanks to
> Brain MacWhinney, Javier Aguado, Gary Morgan, Annick De Houwer, Diane 
> Pesco,
> Yvan Rose, Karen Schauwers,  Géraldine Hilaire-Debove who responded to 
> my
> query for advice on videorecorders and contributed very useful 
> information
>
> As announced, I post a summary below, for those who might also consider
> buying new material.
> Edy Veneziano
>
> SUMMARY of INFO on Videorecording material
>
> **The CHILDES site has very useful information on digital equipment 
> ****
>
> Material bought between one and 3 years ago :
> - JVC camcorders,- model GR-DVL 100.
> quality of sound very good; are very robust.  are recognized by Macs 
> without
> problems; come with a remote control which turned out to be a useless
> feature; flash light is too strong and annoying
>
> - Sony handicam ; Digital is delicate - needed to be  fixed a couple of
> times in 3 years; a lot more expensive than VHS-c and it is only really
> practical if you want to do a lot of direct saving from video to 
> computer to
> put on CDs (still not really practical to save in computers it takes 
> up a
> lot of space)
>
> - Panasonic NV-DS37EG Digital Video Camera used in conjunction with two
> mono-directional light microphones - reception Azden
> WR22-pro . Very good sound and image quality.
>
> -  Panasonic MiniDV model ) - it's really excellent. Easy to use and 
> great
> sound and picture quality. check out the possibility of transferring 
> the
> MiniDV format to VHS (for easy viewing).
>
>
> Date of material unspecified- probably more recent
>
> - Panasonic AG-DVC15p - it's mini DV- It cost about $3000 Canadian.  
> It's
> bigger but good for stability and easy to operate; can record on 2 
> channels
>
>
> -Sony Digital-8 camcorders. They're very good and
> a bit less expensive than mini-dv.; compatible Hi8
>
> - Panasonic NV-GS3 (mini DV), which is an excellent
> digital camera. It is small , good for following subjects anywhere
> as other digital camcorder can be connected directly to computer, for
> transcription with CLAN connected to video fragments
>
>
>
>
>
>

*****************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D.
Project Manager, Research Assistant
Dept. of Communication Disorders
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003

413.545.5023
fax: 545.0803

bpearson at comdis.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/