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Can anyone recomend a good HD video cam' for recording close up card magic and for going out and about doing street magic?

Flip HD

The Cannon hv40 is the cheepest camera That shoots aceptable HD footage, you might want to get an external mic though, if you have some extra to spend That is..

Thanks guys, going to Canada in a couple of months time so gonna try n pick one up.

I have the Flip HD and the Kodak ZI8. I prefer the Kodak Zi8 . Find your own requirements and have fun

just know that HD, does not mean good quality, which is what most people seem to think. HD is just the resolution, meaning the size of the footage.

TheMentalist wrote:just know that HD, does not mean good quality, which is what most people seem to think. HD is just the resolution, meaning the size of the footage.

I'm having visions of a bloke carrying around a massive canvas for some reason. "Want to look at my video?"

HD means high resolution. Resolution is a pixel (dots of colour) count - not size. HD is usually either 720p or 1080p (720 or 1080 pixels wide), the physical size on your screen depends on your monitor and your computer settings. For example my iMac can show about 120 pixels per inch, so a 1080px wide resolution image will be about 9 inches wide. But a normal PC is usually 72 pixels per inch, which will show it at a size of 15 inches wide. Print is usually about 300dpi, so that 15 inch image will be 3.6 inches in your magazine

You might think the bigger image will be better - but not so. The more pixels you get per inch (and the more pixels you can *show* per inch), the better quality the image. That means you see blurred text on the iPhone 3GS which would look crisp on the iPhone 4, and you can see the wrinkles on Miriam O'Reilly's forehead when watching BBC HD where you can't on a standard definition TV set

I hope that makes things clearer, and I hope that if I made a mistake in my maths there someone will correct me

i sould have clarified 'Size' i did mean amount of pixels. i should also clarify 'Quality' you can have as many pixels on a piece of footage as you want, but if the footage is grainy, has lots of rolling shutter and is interlaced, the quality of your footage won't be good

TheMentalist wrote:i sould have clarified 'Size' i did mean amount of pixels. i should also clarify 'Quality' you can have as many pixels on a piece of footage as you want, but if the footage is grainy, has lots of rolling shutter and is interlaced, the quality of your footage won't be good

Interlaced HD is the norm in UK broadcasting, and doesn't affect the number of pixels. And at 25 frames per second you're not really going to notice the less lines sent per frame either

For simple point, shoot and edit then the flip HD is excellent value for money
If you want to go up market then the choice appears endless. I can only speak from experience here and I have used the Flip with great results and i have a friend that shoots excellent video using his Digital SLR, though these are seriously expensive bits of kit.

kolm wrote:Interlaced HD is the norm in UK broadcasting, and doesn't affect the number of pixels. And at 25 frames per second you're not really going to notice the less lines sent per frame either

i bow before your superior knowledge