[sensorfreaky]

Hello all.

I need to do some iMovie magic on some raw footage. Problem is, it is not my own footage and I am unsure whether this recorded miniDV footage can be played back by my camera and eventually imported to iMovie.

Is there a difference in the way footage is recorded to miniDV (given the default record speed "SP" is used) between different video cameras?

The footage was originally recorded on a nice three CCD Canon XL-1S. And my plan is to playback and import this recorded footage using my lowly consumer-grade one CCD Canon Elura 40MC.

Is it even possible to playback miniDV tapes with material recorded on a 'higher' camera such as the XL-1S on a lesser camera like the 40MC? Or should I not even bother to have the tapes sent to me?

Please advise. I'm just dying to do some epic video-editing with good material and finally giving iMovie 3 a first run at things.

My initial guess was that "sure, a miniDV tape is a miniDV tape and should at least playback and output from any miniDV camera" But then I'm thinking, this stuff was recorded on professional grade camera... doesn't that have different record heads, encoding and whatever such??? Any video professionals care to comment? The guy who owns the XL-1S doesn't know either.

Thanks.

[Eriamjh]

miniDV is a tape size. DV is a digital video format.

Yes, a miniDV tape recorded in one player should work on another miniDV camcorder. The data format is the same.

The biggest difference between a high end camera and a cheapo miniDV is not the recording heads, etc. (not too much) but the CCD and optics that converts the analog picture to digital to be stored in miniDV format.

Since miniDV is also a compressed format (5:1 compared to uncompressed) it is possible that higher end cameras have better compression algorithms. However, I think the biggest difference is the optics and CCD and the amount of control one has over the camera (more professional features, not dumbified for consumer use).

Even a Sony Digital8 camera records in the same format as miniDV. It just uses a different tape size.

So do the import into iMovie. Your one-ccd camera won't care. It's just gonna send the data out the FW port to iMovie anyway and the CCD won't even be used.

[sensorfreaky]

Thanks! That's what I wanted to hear.