Camcorder format issues

[Mr Noble]

Sorry if this has been done to death, not been in here for a while!


I want a camcorder (std def or HD - not bothered) that I can stick in my car with an SD card in it, and then remove the SD card, whach it into my macbook, PC home comp and samsung series 7 LED-LCD TV to view the footage without having to convert the files!!!



I bought the Panasonic Panasonic SD10 the other day and it seems to work well and record good incar stuff on track, but I have to convert the file to an mp4 file in imovie before I can play it in anything!! It seems so crazy to have to do that.


Just been into Currys and returned it for a full credit



I can't find (don't know where to look) for a camcorder that will output in a "normal" format that most computers and tv's will play straight off the SD card.

Will there ever be 1 format that everyone uses?

Thanks,
Greg

[crmcatee]

have you tried loading VLC on the Mac. ?

[fastfreddy]

Mr Noble said:

Will there ever be 1 format that everyone uses?

Thanks,
Greg

Unlikely. As the codecs get more efficient and manufacturers try and make their hardware perform better than the competition, there will always be new formats and the software and hardware media players will always lag behind.

VLC or Media Player Classic (NOT Windows Media Player!) are your two best bets at the moment if you want to play a file straight out of the camera. Some camcorders come with software designed to play back those particular files, but you may not want to have special software installed...

[Fordo]

jvc are making some pro-sumer cameras at the moment, that record straight into .mov files onto SD cards. (to be precise, i think they're mp4's in a .mov wrapper). The upshot- you can copy them straight to your hardrive and edit away in final cut.

Might be out of your budget though.

You might want to look for a camera that records in AVCHD format- its rapidly becoming the consumer HD recording format of choice. whether your computer can play it in real time, just depends how fast it is. A compressed HD format is unusually quite processor intensive.

If its just playing the files, then VLC player should play anything. Quicktime can usually play most things, even the mp4's you mentioned.

as for editing, theres some info on what cameras imovie gets on well with here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1014