On Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:33:00 GMT, "Software Dude"
<lamont@sanford.son> wrote:
> I am going to
be buying my first digital camera. It's the kind of camera
>that lets you record video and sound as well as
"snapshots." The person at
>Sears is recommending the Sony DCRT RV33 MiniDV Digital
Camera for $759. I
>told him that I wanted to get some feedback from some
experts (like you!)
>before making my purchase. The sales person couldn't
answer some of my
>questions, so maybe you could take a shot at one of
these questions:
>
> 1) What do
you think of the Sony model referenced above?
It is the newest version of the TRV25/27-PC101, with
1/4.7" megapixel CCD. It is quite good but for low-light range
(the "lower" Sony models are actually better with
this,
though the picture is a touch less sharp...).
> 2) Will this
camera suit my needs? My main goal is to use this camera to
>record video of me in drag racing events. I want to take
these videos and
>put them on the Internet for my friends to see. This
means (I think) that
>the video needs to be stored in a format that can be
played in Windows Media
>Player or Real Player. I think that this means I need
the camera to save as
>MPG format? Correct? I want my friends to be able to
click a link and have
>the video 'stream' to them (like on MSNBC.com) instead
of forcing them to
>download a 150meg file all at once. My web server will
be IIS. Will this
>camera allow me to do this?
It can serve as the "camera", but I think it is up
to you
to supply what is needed for connection and compression
of the image/sound for streaming... As a camera for this
purpose, it is "overkill", since the streamed
video is of
very poor quality...
> 3) Why does
the camera have both USB and firewall outputs? What is
>firewire used for? I have USB inputs on my computer and
am willing to buy
>and install a firewire PCI card if I need too -- but
first I'd like to
>understand if I need firewire at all.
I'm not sure why this question keeps coming up - Mini-DV
(and variants) video at highest quality has always been
transferred/copied-digitally using FireWire (only!) - the
USB connection serves for downloading stills and the
highly-compressed Memory-Stick (not tape) video...
> 4) Is it
possible for me to edit the video stream? For example, I might
>want to add my own music background or add text at the
bottom of the video
>that describes in detail what the viewer is seeing. Does
Sony provide the
>software to do this?
Dunno - I'm into higher-quality results rather than
lower...;-) I suspect that a used $10 camera intended
for "video-phone" would serve about as well for
video-streaming - or a cheap 8mm, or...? ;-)