MicroMV review?

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DVSteve
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Joined: Dec 14 2002

I have both the Sony PC110 (DV) and have just purchased the new Sony IP220 (MV) and have to say that for the video editors amongst us I am impressed by the MV. Quality appears as good as DV (the camera specs say 530 lines (MV) versus 520 lines (DV) and the resultant DVDs appear identical to each other in terms of video quality. I would suggest that Sony have improved their SteadyShot with the latest IP220 as it is truly superb (but they forgot an external mic socket the fools).
However, the biggest benefit that I have found is the ability to manipulate the downloaded video files - MV files are significantly smaller than raw DV and my only gripe is that I am restricted to Studio 8 or MovieShaker at the moment to edit, however MovieShaker does have excellent capture facilities of the video off the tape, complete with it's preview thumbnails of each shot.
An article that covers the benefits (or failings if there are any that I haven't found yet) of MV from the perspective of the video editor using home PC hardware might be of interest to many, especially if undertaken side by side with identical footage taken on DV.

However, for anyone who has purchased MV and does not intend computer editing I think they will be very disappointed. Each shot stutters at the end with a still frame lasting 1/25 of a second - enough to make watching unedited footage a real pain!

For me it's not a problem as I edit everything but I can see a large percentage of returns from dissatisfied customers.

Great magazine by the way

Steve

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

We did a review of the previous generation MicroMV model, and this gave it a pretty good kicking - and included some ripe remarks about the pause between clips.

Sony hasn't volunteered to give us a new-generation model for some reason.

What software are you editing the footage with?

Bob C

DVSteve
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Joined: Dec 14 2002

Yes I saw that review and I felt that it was based very much on the viewpoint of a consumer user whereas the bias may have been better from that of a home enthusiast who edits - in which case some of the kicks might have been a little over zealous

If I were a "joe public" user then I would find MicroMV a real disappointment, after all the between shot stills make give a lousy impression when showing your neighbours your holiday video! However the compressed nature of MV and it's ease of editing with a quality that is identical to DV when played from a DVD makes significant strides forward in terms of home editability (sp)

Neither do I worry about a 'new' standard - after all I only use my camcorders to capture the raw video and I later burn all of the raw captured material to a DVD as a data storage medium - so I'll probably never buy more than a dozen tapes anyway.

I am forced to use Studio 8 (no real hardship for me) which works well and is a lot faster than MovieShaker at loading up the raw footage although MovieShaker has the best capture function I have seen. My DV editing was/is done with Premiere so I am hopeful that this may be made MV compatible at some point (but have my doubts)

Steve

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

Worth remembering that when we did our review there was no editing program that worked with the MicroMV camcorder, apart from MovieShaker - and that's a good part of the reason why, from the editing perspective, our review wasn't very complimentary.

Bob C