This is my first digital camcorder, but I already use one 4 years ago (I borrow it from work for a few weeks). The one I used in 2003 was a Canon ZR500, it was the cheapest camera in this time. Here's my question now: "Yesterday I was importing a movie from my ZR800 into my iMovie (08') and it was importing at real time. I mean... if I have 10 minutes of video into the digicam, I took 10 minutes to import. I there a settings somewhere to import faster (inside the digicam or inside iMovie 08)?" Because with the ZR500 (4 years ago), it was importing a lot faster than real time, it took around 2 minutes for a 20 minutes video! And the ZR500 was also the entry level camera from Canon 4 years ago.
I don't understand... with the ZR500, 4 years ago, it took around 2 minutes to import 20 minutes of realtime video.
Look in the manual for the video camera, or the software to see if you can do it. I can't imagine the quality being any good, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Well, I already look into my ZR800 manual, but they do not mention too much about importing video into the computer. There is only a very short paragraph like "plug your camera into the computer, then import your video, enjoy!". I also take a look into Apple iMovie 08 manual but that's the same thing, nothing related to the importing speed. But I swear, when I do some video editing with the ZR500 I borrowed to work (4 years ago), I record something like an hour of video and it doesn't took over 6 or 7 minutes to import into iMovie (it was the iMovie first version in this time). That's why I'm been VERY surprised when I first import video with my ZR800 last week and import it as realtime video. I can't believe it will take over 63 minutes to import a full tape into my iMovie!!??
These are bothe miniDV camcorders and although I have no I have no personla experience wuth these two models, I don't think you can do a transfer faster than real time. I have never heard of any minDV camcorder that can do a full quality transfer at higher speeds than the normal recording speed, so I can't imagine you actually were able to transfer with 10x speed with the ZR800 at any decent quality. Some programs can do a fast index of a tape at FF speed, but than they just capture one frame every half second or something.
Even if it could capture, high speed, from a miniDV camcorder, I sure the hell wouldn't recommend it, if you value the heads of your camcorder.
Well okay, thank you. I was probably on drugs or something like that when I use the ZR500 4 years ago, making me seeing thing going faster than it was! hahahahahahaha!