[Cubeoid]

I know MiniDV has been around for a while, but recently Sony released MicroMV cameras. I am interested in getting a camera and can't seem to identify the ups and downs of each of the formats.

I want to take into full consideration and importance of connection thru firewire to my G4 Cube and support with OS X + iMovie + FinalCut.

Please tell me if you've worked with Micro MV cameras on OS X and how they compare to Mini DV.

Thanks

[MikeD]

I read that microMV isn't compatible with anything but Sony's movieshaker program and even that is a disgrace to windows users. What I mean by that is a lot of people who buy this camera even have problems working with it using Movieshaker. The reason it's not compatible with everything else is because it's recording in MPEG 2 not DV (well what I mean is mini-DV as opposed to DV which is a bit higher in quality). Two totally different compression schemes going on.

[MickS]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
Please tell me if you've worked with Micro MV cameras on OS X and how they compare to Mini DV.

MicroDV will not work with any Apple movie software on either OS X or OS 9. They are not 'DV' cameras but MPEG ones. From a filming point of view this lead to much smaller files so consequently you can have smaller tapes/longer play time, however the compression is lossy and quality can suffer.

I recently replaced my DV camera (lost one - don't ask) and bought a Sony PC-8 which was cheaper than the MicroDV offering and works well with OS X.