im not a complete noob at the whole video filming thing but i cant decide between mini dv, sd card or hard drive.

The overall consensus seems to be that mini dv shoots in better quality. I have filmed in mini dv before and transfering it to the computer was such a faf and took forever!

The most convenient seems to be hard drive but it cant be good for a hard drive being rattled about in a back pack.

Then there is the sd card this option would kick ass as theres no moving parts to get rattled about but im not sure how good the quality would be storing this way.

Anyone had good/bad experiences with any of these? if someone could post a link to there hard drive sd or mini dv film i could compare. i understand the camcorder would affect quality too however.

it might just have been poor equipment. the computer wouldn't register the cameras existence.

hmm also how much difference does firewire make?

A firewire is the ONLY way to get MiniDV footage from a camera to a computer. So in that respect, I would say they make quite a lot of difference


Which way round do you mean? You said computer twice.

Yup, the lack of a firewire and firewire card was probably the reason your computer had no idea it was there.

As for getting a MiniDV tapedeck there is no point unless you are going to be using it professionaly. The camera performs perfectly well as a tapedeck, and with the amount of use an average user puts in it will never wear out.

Read the manual

another question: what kind of shutter speed is needed for mountain biking videos.

so any idea what this means? 1/50–1/8.000 Sec.(Tape Mode), 1/25–1/500 Sec.(Card Mode)