I bought a sony handycam mini dvd recorder and discovered that it really isn't compatible with imovie nor is it easy to edit with. So I can exchange so I have been looking at the optura line by canon. My question is will optura 60 work with imovie? I know the 50 will since they sell it on the apple website, but I read that the 60 is better in low lighting situations so I would rather opt for the 60. Does anyone here own either of these cameras or comment on the quality. I only have a few days to make the exchange so I kind of have to make a quick decision and I've never bought a camcorder before so I would appreciate your input thank you.
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The canon optura line
- Thread starter SaleenS351
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SaleenS351 said:
i have the Optura 10 and it works great with iMovie.. i just used it as a brigde
to import my old Hi8 to my mac(topic still floating here) My little Optura 10 works really good in low light and looks REALLY great on my big HD screen... even tho its not a HD camera. Great price too.
the whole Optura line seems to work really well with macs and have not
seen one person say anything bad about this line of cameras.
To be fair, it's the dvd part of the Sony camera that doesn't play nicely with iMovie. The same would happen with any DVD-camcorder and most HD ones at the moment.
The Optura 60s are good cameras, OIS is particularly nice. If you've already bought Sony accessories, you might want to look at one of the Sony DV cameras which work perfectly well with iMovie. I have an HC90 which I've had no problems with.
The Optura 60s are good cameras, OIS is particularly nice. If you've already bought Sony accessories, you might want to look at one of the Sony DV cameras which work perfectly well with iMovie. I have an HC90 which I've had no problems with.
I have the Optura 60
...and it works great with both iMovie and FCE. I've never had any problems, but then I wouldn't expect any since DV is pretty compatible across most manufacturers. You'll need a lot of storage space, of course, because uncompressed .dv files eat up the GBs....
If you haven't already been there, http://www.camcorderinfo.com is a pretty decent resource for comparison shopping between different cams.
...and it works great with both iMovie and FCE. I've never had any problems, but then I wouldn't expect any since DV is pretty compatible across most manufacturers. You'll need a lot of storage space, of course, because uncompressed .dv files eat up the GBs....
If you haven't already been there, http://www.camcorderinfo.com is a pretty decent resource for comparison shopping between different cams.
thanks for the replys. I just bought a 250GB G-drive external HDD. plus I have about 100GB left on my computer HDD. I'm just starting so i hope that will hold me over for a little while. I was looking at the canon because I like the look of the camera more than the sony's and figured I wouldn't really be able to tell difference in quality so i would rather go with looks. The only sony accessorie I got was a free bag but hope fully the optura will fit in there. What line of sony is camparable to the canon optura line? thanks for the link as well.
SaleenS351 said:
The HC ones are the equivalent. The higher the number, the more features. The 19/22 are the lowest level, then the 40s and then the 90s. I'm not so keen on camcorderinfo.com; I think they're very biased towards/against certain brands based on their personal preferences.
One good one (although in French) if you want to see the results from some cameras is Magazine Video. They have 30-60 second movies from popular brands. One thing to note here though is that the Optura range has another name in Europe - they're all MXnumbrs. The MX45i is the Optura 60 IRC.
Thanks for your help and input everyone. I appreciate it. In the end I ended up going with the panasonic PV-GS400. Seeming as low lighting was not a big issue with me since I'll be doing most of my filming outside in southern california.
Yes it will work without a problem.
I have owned this very camcorder. It performed beautifully. I haven't used it with any other program, besides FCP 4.5 HD. Very easy to use, and links nicely to the macs via firewire.
side note>
If you scroll to the bottom of the link it will show the Happy Mac logo, indicating it works with the mac. On another note, i bought my Optura 60 from B&H Photo.
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=166&modelid=11153
I have owned this very camcorder. It performed beautifully. I haven't used it with any other program, besides FCP 4.5 HD. Very easy to use, and links nicely to the macs via firewire.
side note>
If you scroll to the bottom of the link it will show the Happy Mac logo, indicating it works with the mac. On another note, i bought my Optura 60 from B&H Photo.
http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=166&modelid=11153
SaleenS351 said:
That's a great low end 3 chip camera!
the CCDs are close to being 1/4 inch which is good for a sub 1500 dollar 3 chip camera.
Just make sure you learn how to use the manual controls!
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HCR-HC1-Review.htm
Now THAT'S what I want, anyone know anything about it?
Now THAT'S what I want, anyone know anything about it?
SaleenS351 said:
With DV, you can expect approximately one minute of video to take one Gig. Thus your 350 GB will hold about 350 minutes. About six hours. This, however, does not include the space devoted to rendering, MPEG compression, audio editing, etc. Remember to always keep at least 10% of your drive space free - otherwise everything will slow down to a crawl.
It's handy that you're dealing with iMovie, because it doesn't tend to scatter render files nearly as much as FCP. Just save your project folder on the drive where you want to store it, and you should be set. It will be worth it to look into the specs of your two drives. If one is 7200rpm (faster) and one is 5400rpm (slower) you should do your editing on the faster drive. You can always move the project later on for archiving.
Question for you guys...
I have an optura 60, had it for about 4 months, i am now just trying to hook it up to my Mac mini and it isnt being recognized in iMovie HD. I just installed iLife 06, and i am running Tiger. Wondering if you guys had any ideas... thanks
Mikey mike
I have an optura 60, had it for about 4 months, i am now just trying to hook it up to my Mac mini and it isnt being recognized in iMovie HD. I just installed iLife 06, and i am running Tiger. Wondering if you guys had any ideas... thanks
Mikey mike
First things to check
You're using a Firewire cable, not a USB one
(if it's not working, try a different fw cable - they do something stop working)
The camcorder has the correct time set on it (I'm assuming the Mac does!)
Then, connect the camera and turn it on (set to playback) and open up iMovie HD. Choose your filename etc and it should 'see' the camera. If it's not, make sure the camera/edit switch in below the scrubber bar is switched to camera and try turning the camera off/on again.
You're using a Firewire cable, not a USB one
(if it's not working, try a different fw cable - they do something stop working)
The camcorder has the correct time set on it (I'm assuming the Mac does!)
Then, connect the camera and turn it on (set to playback) and open up iMovie HD. Choose your filename etc and it should 'see' the camera. If it's not, make sure the camera/edit switch in below the scrubber bar is switched to camera and try turning the camera off/on again.
Thanks, I tried all of the things that you mentioned and still i am having no success. I just looked and the optura 60 is no longer on the list of compatible camcorders... any ideas.
I figured it out... my firewire port wasnt working properly... had to hard reset the machine... thanks for all the help guys.