h.264 Camcorders, microphones, lighting, and podcasts help

[primeone]

Hi,

I'm about to start my own podcast for my one man startup I'm doing and I'm wondering could anyone suggest a particular camcorder that records in HD AVC h.264? I got the final cut studio and know how to use it for cutting footage but i need recommendations on basic lighting and gels equipment, recommended HD h.264 camcorders, and recommended condenser shotgun microphones on the cheep. I grew up with a theater professor for a mom so I know how to fully set all this stuff up but I don't know what would be viable options for someone who is a cheap ponce like my self.

[tokenuser]

Hi,

I'm about to start my own podcast for my one man startup I'm doing and I'm wondering could anyone suggest a particular camcorder that records in HD AVC h.264? I got the final cut studio and know how to use it for cutting footage but i need recommendations on basic lighting and gels equipment, recommended HD h.264 camcorders, and recommended condenser shotgun microphones on the cheep. I grew up with a theater professor for a mom so I know how to fully set all this stuff up but I don't know what would be viable options for someone who is a cheap ponce like my self.H.264 is an encoding format - and even though it is fairly lossless it is still compressing video. You want an HD camcorder, the h.264 comes later.

[primeone]

Oh i know h.264 is an encoder format, akin to mpeg-2, or divx mpeg-4 part 2. But i know you can have an hd camera that uses h.264 as the format it saves the video to while other ones save it to AVCHD which is a modified version of normal H.264 / AVC codec. I'm just trying to find a camera that is not gonna have me have to transcode or well even a suggested codec decoder for Mac that lets me just straight take the video of even AVCHD and edit it after i dump it off a Hard drive based camcoder.

[tokenuser]

Oh i know h.264 is an encoder format, akin to mpeg-2, or divx mpeg-4 part 2. But i know you can have an hd camera that uses h.264 as the format it saves the video to while other ones save it to AVCHD which is a modified version of normal H.264 / AVC codec. I'm just trying to find a camera that is not gonna have me have to transcode or well even a suggested codec decoder for Mac that lets me just straight take the video of even AVCHD and edit it after i dump it off a Hard drive based camcoder.There are cmeras out there that do that ... like the JVC HDD cameras - but they are compressing the video. You DO NOT want to do that. You are much better off recording in a lossless format, then using the computer to transcode it into whatever format you require. With a compressed format, you can never get back to a lossless format. Better to save to tape, and then archive it (label it and throw it in a drawer) for later.

[rumblestrip]

Cannon HV20 seems to be the camera of the moment for recording high quality video. Check out the past episode of Teckzilla and also DLTV to see Morgan Webb's work flow.

[primeone]

for lossless in video what codec are their besides mpeg-2? I mean h.264 is the next level of mpeg-2 so it should be in all accounts capable of doing lossless. I need a camera that just well works and makes my life hella easier with out having to wait for hours of transcoding to occur just for me to be able to start doing the editing for a podcast. I want to do a daily show and with school and clients I have for work i want to save as much time as possible. I was looking at the SANYO XACTI HD-1000 as a possible option for its ease of use and portability. I would then have to sync the video to the audio because i don't think it has the jack for a mic does it?

[tokenuser]

Video cameras currently dont have the processing power to process images as a LIVE video stream to a good compression type. Let the PC do it for you, otherwise you will be forever disappointed by the results.

[njdrunkingamer]

along the same lines. what are the configurations that tekzilla uses to compress its shows into h.264 ...

a. what is the video and audio kbps
b. what backend encoder do they use for video? for audio?
c. what is the fps that they keep the video to (25 i would guess)?
d. do they multiplex (mp4box) when compressing as well?

thanks!

[masherscf]

Like Token said, compressed video needs to be uncompressed before it can be edited. It makes no sense to record compressed video for a podcast. Get a nice HD camera that can record directly to your computers hard drive.

[primeone]

And which one would you suggest? Also what kind of lighting should I use and particularly what kind of gels would the lights have over them?