I need to buy a new digital VIDEO camera. I need to decide if I can go
for a DVD RAM (disc) camera instead of the more common mini DV (tape)
camera. The mini DV cameras require the transfer of the recordings on
miniDV tape to a disc for viewing by my clients who do not have a mini
DV player or camera; DVD RAM discs can be played on a PC or most DVD
players.

However re DVD RAM cameras, I have two concerns: 
1. Is DVD RAM recording inferior anyway eg, in resolution relative to
miniDV recording? A fair comparison would be to compare the resolution
AFTER a mini DV tape is transferred to DVD (or VCD) with the recording
on a DVD RAM camera (eg, Hitachi DZ-MV270E)
2. Why are DVD RAM cameras not as popular despite offering a more
convenient format (disc versus tape)? DVD RAM cameras are offered by
only Hitachi (3 models) and Panasonic (1 model?). Is it the price that
prevents it from being popular? Or, it is complexity of technology
which other firms have not yet acquired/ mastered?

I have browsed web a lot. The best model (value for money) that I
could come across was: Hitachi DZ-MV270E (better resolution; USB 2
compatibility).

Question:
a) Is resolution of a DVD RAM camera inferior to miniDV camera (after
transfer to a disc)?
b) Why have DVD RAM camera not taken off as well as mini DV cameras?
c) Are there firms (beside Hitachi and Panasonic) which offer DVD RAM
cameras? If they do, please state their model numbers and debut date.

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Clarification of Question by aaz-ga on 01 Jun 2003 04:58 PDT

Many thanks Messrs Vinods and FunkyWizard. I know DVD RAM is less
popular and the technology is nascent ... the very reason for the
question.

Hitachi's models DZ-MV270E / DZ-MV238E offer approx. 720,000 CCD
pixels in movie mode. (See General Q4 under
http://www.hitachiconsumer.com/products/sing/audio/moviec/dvdfaq.htm#q4)

The DVD players made in China can play all types (and all regions) of
DVDs. As I understand, Chinese brands have the biggest global (incl in
the US) share of DVD player market.

Hitachi's models have been out for couple of years - that's a long
time for consumert electronics. Yes, I can wait - the safe thing to
do. But the reason of my question: Why should I wait?

Hi, 

DVD-RAM is important as a digital medium as a replacement for tape.
There are still some basic issues that are being addressed.

While in professional audio the hard drive has been around as media
for a long time, it is also becoming the most efficient method for
recording audio on location, as a portable format because of it's
physical size - versus - capacity, reliability and information
interchange options between the recording unit and a computer
(dockable).

The IEEE139x interface for digital video brought about the possibility
of transferring material from one unit to another efficiently and
quickly. As such, recording digitally on tape or any other format has
been around for a long time. It is the file format, the input/output
interface and standard that have changed and thus brought about
changes in the recording format itself.

As for the physical medium on which the recording takes place, there
are obvious disadvantages of tape (linearity, questionable rubustness,
etc) when compared to a hard drive or a disc.

In the audio paradigm, the audio Compact Disc has reigned for years
now. So also with commercial distribution of video (VCD, LD, DVD).

Recording of the video signal with good quality means a great deal
more of information than audio. With DV, this is made possible because
of the rotating heads and the tape running across with an azimuth.
Yet, there are much higher quality digital video formats on tape that
need more tape width and faster tape speeds.

To be able to record on a disc in a portable unit directly from a CCD
device has become a reality for the first time with the DVD-RAM
camera. In my humble opinion, the DVD-RAM media is still nascent.
Given time it will take over tape-based recorders, but tape will still
be a reality for a long while and both will co-exist.

If you have time, I would advise you to wait a while before this new
medium catches up with users. This way you will have more user stories
and also media gets easier to buy.

As of now, it is Hitachi and Panasonic only. Theoretically, there
should be no inferiority with the DVD-RAM as against DV.

regards
vinods-gar

Well, I see two problems with DVD-RAM vs miniDV

First, the dvd-ram format discs are not compatible with so many dvd
movie players as some other formats such as DVD-R (not to be confused
with DVD+R, DVD-RW, or DVD+RW, each of which is also not compatible
with a maximum number of DVD movie players). Also, whereas DVD-R and
to a lesser extent DVD+R/+RW/-RW are compatible with DVD-Rom drives on
computers, this is true to a much lesser extent with DVD-RAM drives.

Secondly, as you mentioned, MiniDV is more established and more
supported by the video community, which makes it a more desireable
choice in that regards.

Both formats use moving parts, rewriteable medium, and so on, so from
a reliability standpoint, they should be roughly equivalent.

As for potential inferiority of one format to another, if the DVD-RAM
camera stores video in DVD standard format (which it should), then the
compression quality is slightly inferior to MiniDV (though both are
very high quality formats and use the same resolution of 720*480).