DVD or MiniDV: That is the Question

Which camera format is right for you?

By Stephen Schleicher

With CES now at a close, and over 20 new digital video cameras available for purchase in the very near future, the question may arise, ?Which camera is right for me ? DVD or MiniDV??  Is it better to record to DV tape or directly to a tiny DVD inside the camcorder? Here is some food for thought to help you out.

The Formats
DVD-R and DVD-RAM
With the DVD-R discs will play back on nearly all conventional DVD players, but the drawback is you can only write to the discs once.  Much like a piece of film, once the disc has been ?exposed? or finalized, there is nothing else you can do with it except play the footage back.  DVD-RAM discs (and those formats that support DVD-RW/+RW) allow you to copy over old content as many as 100,000 times before the disc wears out. 

The good thing about the DVD format is the variable time length. Depending on the setting, you can record anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours per disc.  The bad thing about the DVD format is you have to use discs that are smaller than your typical DVD disc, which means you need to make sure your player will support this smaller format.  Most DVD players will play these discs, including the PlayStation 2 game system.  Depending on where you look, the DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs run at an MSRP of between $5.00 and $8.00 each.

MiniDV
Since the early days of electronic recording, media has been recorded to some type of linear tape-based system.  MiniDV is one of these formats.  Instead of a disc, you record everything to a small videotape.  These tapes are small, about the size of a Tic Tac container, and can record between 60 and 90 minutes of video.  The tapes will run you between $3.00 and $6.00.

This format has been in use in the prosumer and professional market for nearly a decade and has a proven track record of quality and success.  Most of the digital video cameras you will find on the market today (Canon, Sony, Panasonic) will use MiniDV tape.

With MiniDV you can re-record over old video about 100 times before the tape wears out.  This is not something I recommend doing, but you can if you don?t mind risking your footage.  This can also be a drawback in that you may accidentally tape over an important moment.

The other main drawback to this format is the device on which you will play back the tapes.  While you can certainly connect your camera to the television whenever you want to watch a tape, this puts an unnecessary amount of wear and tear on the camera tape heads, causing them to wear out sooner.  You could purchase a stand-alone deck, but those may cost you in the neighborhood of $1000-$1500.

 

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