Recommended Camcorder & Workflow

[perrotta]

I have some decent experience with Canon DSLR's and Smugmug and want to start experimenting with video. I use Windows PCs.

What kind of camcorder ($500 - $1,000 price range) and workflow (sw tools) should I consider using to maximize ease of uploading to Smugmug and overall video quality?

For the most part, I will not be doing any video editing. I just want to be able to quickly shoot a short video and easily upload it to Smugmug with full HD quality.

Thanks!

[ziggy53]

First, please define what you mean by "full HD quality"?

What resolution do you want to support?

What frame rate?

What video bit rate?

What audio bit rate?

How many audio channels?

Ultimately too, what sort of subject matter? For instance, some camcorders do a much better job with rapid motion than others.

Also please review the following page which defines what video standards SmugMug supports as that might answer some of your questions. If you use a camcorder and a format that SmugMug does not support intrinsically for playback, it will be converted for you, assuming that it is supported as an input format. The conversion may not always be the best for your needs so you are almost always better off converting the video yourself first so you can monitor the conversion quality for yourself. If you convert to a format/size/bitrate that "is" supported intrinsically, SmugMug will not change the video much at all except to resample the video for smaller display sizes.

http://wiki.smugmug.net/display/SmugMug/Video+Help

[perrotta]

In essence, I am looking for a DSLR camera or camcorder that is able to produce directly/natively .mp4, h.264, 7.2mbps, 1920x1080p videos so that I can upload those directly to Smugmug without having to do any conversion, while achieving Smugmug's max video quality while minimizing transmission time.

I currently have a Canon 50D and want to start experimenting with videos (a few minutes in duration, of my kids). The two options I am currently contemplating are upgrading the 50D to a 7D or keeping the 50D and adding a Canon Vixia Camcorder. I would rather carry only one piece of equipment, but I do understand that the Vixia has continuous AF, image stabilization and gives me more flexibility in terms of selecting bitrates.

[ziggy53]

I was hoping someone with a Vixia would jump in. I have been looking at the:


VIXIA HF20
VIXIA HF S20
VIXIA HF S200


... myself, as well as a few other HD camcorders with 1080 x 1920 capabilities. I do suggest that for best quality, especially for any scenes with rapid motion, it would be best to record the scenes at the camcorder's maximum data rate (least compression) and then pass them through software conversion with one of the 2 pass converters to re-sample the video to a lesser data rate (7.2Mbps) prior to uploading to SmugMug.

For non-critical video you might just throw them up to SmugMug and see what the Smuggy converter does, but be prepared for big files and subsequent long upload times for videos of any length.