I'm looking to buy some new camcorders for professional applications. I see the new DVD camcorders but I wanted to find other's opinion of them. Which would you sugest for professional use?
If the camcorder records in DVD format, then it might not be acceptable for professional use. If it simply records AVI-DV on to a DVD disc, that might be acceptable, but not likely. DVD is recorded using MPEG2 format -- which is a lossy compression. You want to use as little lossy compression as possible as your source. To my knowledge, even AVI-DV has *some* lossy compression involved, but no where near as much as MPEG2.
Both (DV + DVD) use lossy compression, but DV throws away less data (60 minutes = ~ 13GB) or in other words, DVD compression is more efficient. So Mpeg2 needs more processing power (= battery life is shorter, hardware is more expensive) and, depending on compression factor + algorithm quality, you can run into visible artifacts and/or quality problems later during processing. Besides, DVD-R(W) media need to be handled with much care (no direct sunlight, can be scratched easily) and age quickly (assumption based on experiences with CD-R(W) media). I also wonder how shock-resistant DVD-writers integrated in camcorders are during operation...
I would not say that DVD (MPEG2) is more efficient, but simply throws away more data. That is an important distinction -- just like high quality JPEG compression and low quality. The low quality setting isn't more efficient, just discards more stuff (loss of quality). This is why I prefer DV. DV throws away less data. Although most times, most people won't be able to tell the difference, it is there and especially if you save/re-save enough times to get generational decay of quality (which happens on either format, but becomes more noticable with MPEG2 quicker than DV).
