New camera, need help with settings etc

[bushcamper]

G'day guys, I've just bought a JVC GZ MG505.

Link to review

http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/news/articles/story_7842.html

We are about to head off on a 5 week motor home trip around New Zealand and am not sure which settings to use. Any advice would be most appreciated.

1---which video mode, the choices are:
Ultra fine….720 x 576 pixels, 8.5 Mbps (VBR) 430 minutes
Fine……….720 x 576 pixels, 5.5 Mbps (VBR) 640 minutes
Normal……720 x 576 pixels, 4.2 Mbps (VBR) 850 minutes
Economy….352 x 288 pixels, 1.5 Mbps (VBR) 2250 minutes
I would have used one of the first two, but which one?

2---do I record in 16:9 or 4:3?
At the moment we have a 4:3 TV but I imagine that we will end up with a WS.
Extract from a review
Each CCD is capable of 1,230,000 effective pixels when using in the default 4:3 setting, but surprisingly, this drops by some 40 percent to 774,1880 when used in 16:9 widescreen. Even with that reduction, there is still 2.3 megapixels available in total for video imaging.
Is this worth worrying about?

3--- if I record in 16:9 can I play it back on a 4:3 TV without distorting the picture and vice versa?

4---I have ordered a circular polarizing filter (I have used a linier filter with my 35mm SLRs over the last 40 years). Are they useful on digital video cameras?

5---in still mode the image size and quality choices are:
Fine or Standard with image sizes of (2560 x 1920), (2048 x 1536), (1600 x 1200), (1280 x 960) and (640 x 480).
I probably would have used 2048 x 1536 unless adviced otherwise.

Like I said, any tips, advice or opinions will be gratefully accepted.

Thanks,

Keith

[Chewy]

I would go with fine and 4:3, dvd's will be fine at 5.5 MB/s

how big a laptop hard drive do you have?

(4GB) video clip can be transferred in about five minutes

I don't believe this at all

[bushcamper]

G'day Chewy, our lap top is only 80GB but is new so there should be enough room for the trip.

[Chewy]

I would do some testing, how does normal look when transfered to the laptop?

Normal would give you about 2 hours of video per single layer dvd, 20 hours of video vs 15 hours at fine?

Sure beats the 30 min tapes or mini dvd's.

[bushcamper]

A week ago I recorded the same scene in normal, fine and ultra fine and couldn't see any difference between them on the computer or the TV.

This is OK for the systems I have at the moment, just wondering if the higher settings might be any advantage in the future?

What type/brand of DVD would you use to save the movies?

Thanks

Keith

[Chewy]

well I hope you aren't going to use that laptop for burning many dvd's, internal dvd burners in standard computers are much better

verbatim or taiyo yudens are the best, however I know getting good blanks in NZ(kiwi land) is almost impossible

you might reedit your home movies and just use pricey dvd's for the better footage

sooner or later you might want an external hard drive to supplement the laptop

what's your dvd burner situation and what brands of blanks are available

The reason I reccomended using 4:3 was mostly based on the higher pixels available

[bushcamper]

Our lap top is a Lenovo C200

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3391&review=Lenovo+C200

We also have our home computer which has a LG DVD RW (Super Multi if that means anything to you)

I haven't taken much notice of the brands available here, but we should be able to get most that are sold in Australia.

Would you use DVD+R or DVD-R or something else?

Do you know if I record in 16:9 can I play it back on a 4:3 TV without distorting the picture and vice versa?

[Chewy]

you just have the black bars top and bottom when viewing a wide screen vid on a 4:3 tv

I would burn a 4:3 and play it on a wide screen tv to test tho, it seems they are just chopping off the top and bottom of the pixels with that format tho instead of vice versa

maybe someone else with a similar cam could add to this

[bushcamper]

When I play back a scene shot in 16:9 on my 4:3 TV it's stretched vertically and fills the screen.

On the flip out screen on the camera I get a wider view when I record in 16:9, I can see more of the scene on the sides and slightly less on top and bottom, the picture is also zoomed in a small amount. It isn't the 4:3 picture with the top and bottom cut off.

I like the look of the 16:9 picture but would like to know if the drop in pixels will cause noticeable problems now or later and is there a way to play it on the old TV or do I just bight the bullet and buy a WS sooner?