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So recently I've been getting back into MiniDV, basically the last popular consumer video tape format for portable video recording.
Okay, I'm young. I'm not even 20, and perhaps there are people as young as (or younger than) me here that wonder what the hell I'm actually on about. I suppose the chances are kinda slim but I'll explain it anyway.
As I said just before, MiniDV was the last portable video tape format that was really popular before the rise of digital recording onto hard disks, SD cards, Memory Sticks, DVD-R's, etcetera. It gained its name due to it being the consumerised, miniature version of the larger DVCAM tapes, and also stored video in the Digital Video (DV) codec. It was really popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s - hell, my mum was carrying around her JVC MiniDV camcorder to my [awful] school events as late as 2009, though she primarily used it to record stuff at home.
A MiniDV tape looks like this.
There are variations in the casing of tapes but this is what a typical Panasonic tape looks like. They'll have the pop-up lid to protect the tape at the front-top, a window or two for the tape so you can tell how much recording time you have left, the recording lengths in short play and long play, then the lubricant type. The standard recording length was 60 minutes for short play and 90 minutes for long play.
Yeah, that's a thing. As far as I know all MiniDV tapes are Metal Evaporated (M.E) but Sony apparently used Metal Particle (M.P) on some of their DVCAM tapes, so I'm not sure if that also carried over to their MiniDV tapes.
My MiniDV weapon of choice is the Panasonic NV-DS27, a camcorder with seemingly no branding other than this. A bit odd, but okay. It's so silver that it absolutely reeks of the late 1990s to early 2000s era, and from what I've managed to find (thank you for helping with research, you know who you are) it was an early 2000s model, with a review from 2002 saying it was about £400. Not bad.
It sports a 37mm diameter lens with a focal length between 3.1 and 46.5mm, and has a maximum aperture of f/1.8. Crucially, it also sports a 15x optical zoom. This thing can zoom far - handy for a video camera. It does have 600x digital zoom but I will never use it as it degrades the quality of video too much for me to deem acceptable. Its other handy dandy feature is the O-Lux switch right next to the lens - this switches the camera to infrared mode, using two little IR emitters on the front. It has a decent range and does come in handy in low light situations.
Menu stuff is controlled using the Menu button and the jog dial on the left side, just in front of the flip-out LCD. It can apparently pull extra duty as a volume control in playback mode, but I've only found it works as a jog dial for frame by frame viewing. Also present here is a focus button (presumably to force the camera to refocus) and a focus control switch, to change from AF to MF and also for AE lock.
Above the flip-out LCD is the playback controls, letting you fast forward, rewind, search, stop, pause and play.
On the rear is the main battery slot, which takes a few sizes of battery but I have the third party equivalent of a Panasonic CGR-D16s 1800mAh pack in there. It's a 7.2 volt pack so it's definitely two lithium-polymer cells connected together, probably in series, to produce that operating voltage. Panasonic would sell you up to a 5300mAh cell, which from photos is absolutely massive. Moving on though, behind the main battery is the door to reveal the real-time clock battery - Panasonic calls this the 'backup' battery, and I suppose they aren't wrong. It's a single CR2025 3V lithium coin cell, and it seems its only function is to keep the clock running.
On the right side is the eject switch, the MiniDV tape mechanism to which that switch is electronically attached, and a cover which hides a good amount of ports. An Edit socket is provided, but I have nothing to use it with. There's S-video out (handy!), a digital still picture 3.5mm jack for pulling still video frames off tapes, an AV / headphones output 3.5mm jack, an external microphone input in 3.5mm form, and the venerable 4-pin FireWire 400 port (labelled I.LINK or DV on this camera) to capture the video from the camera and onto your computer. The mic jack isn't powered though, more on that later.
At the top is the colour viewfinder, alongside a 'Photoshot' button for taking still frames and the rather flimsy looking zoom control.
When I got this camera the main OEM pack barely lasted 5 minutes, and the clock battery was stone dead - given its Panasonic branding it was absolutely original. Oddly enough the latter seems absolutely crucial to the RTC's operation, as even with a semi-functional but old Li-ion pack installed the RTC would lose power and thus the time and date. I'm unsure as to why Panasonic made certain the RTC couldn't run off the main Li-ion pack - it seems to me like a rather odd decision - especially because in later models they replaced the coin cell with an internal lithium cell that was irreplaceable by the end-user without tearing the camera apart. In any case, I had to source a new Li-ion pack from online alongside a 5-pack of CR2025's, as for some reason all the shops near me had decided they didn't want to stock this particular, common type of coin cell.
In the end it still ended up being better, as although I had to wait out the weekend for them I got five CR2025's and a 9-volt for just over £8, including shipping. Supermarkets would've charged around £5 for two CR2025's alone. The replacement main battery pack was about £20, par for the course for the 1800-2000mAh capacity range from what I saw online.
With both installed it can keep the time and record for a lot damn longer!
Since the DS27 is a MiniDV camcorder and a PAL model, it records 720x576 interlaced video (576i) to tape, squished into the DV format. You can record in either 12-bit nonlinear PCM at a 32KHz sampling rate (384Kbps/channel) with four channels or in 16-bit Linear PCM stereo, recording at a 48KHz sampling rate at 768Kbps/channel. I use the latter as there is no advantage to me using the 12-bit option.
Video quality is honestly par for the course - it's a decent looking output, although the flip-out LCD won't let you see it at its best. 576i may look soft compared to anything recorded these days, but really... when most people record on phones with tiny sensors, your video is 'soft' anyway, so who gives a shit if this is just standard def video? Well, the answer is a lot of people, but I'm not one of them.
Audio surprised me. When I'm speaking, the stereo mic picks me up clearly, but it has trouble picking up a voice even just half a metre or so ahead of it. It's good enough for home use, but if you want higher quality audio you should be looking at something like the Rode VideoMic Rycote, and specifically something like that. Again, I'll point out the flaw that's led me to say this a little later.
I was impressed with the infrared emitters' ability to take a low light situation and let you see again. They don't have *that* much range, as they are small LEDs designed with a possibly rather low power budget in mind, but they do work. If I ever take it out and end up in darkness, it will be very handy.
It does feel a bit cheap. At its price I'm willing to say that Panasonic couldn't make the plastic any better than it is without going over the budget the engineers were presented with and still include features such as IR video, so I'm willing to let it slide. Back then though, £400 *was* cheap for a MiniDV camera. Despite being released in 1995, 8mm formats like Video8 or Hi8 seemed dominant at least in the UK, while MiniDV was the more expensive, digital option. Another reason why I'm willing to overlook the cheapy feel.
The LCD is titchy compared to the gigantic bezel surrounding it on the LCD. This is yet another sign the engineers ran up against a price target that they needed to meet, so they had to use a small LCD.
There aren't many. The only two I can think of are the cheapy build and the microphone jack. The latter is actually my main complaint! It does not provide power, so most shotgun microphones you can buy today will outright not work, as they are designed with the concept that the camera is able to provide power in mind. This one can't. Therefore, you have to stick to microphones that require external power. This includes Rode's VideoMic Rycote, which takes a 9 volt battery, and will be the mic I'll be getting eventually for this camcorder.
The NV-DS27 is a pretty good, cheap camcorder, but is not the most common model out there. Sony Handycams of varying formats tend to dominate. Its main trick of having IR video could be one of the reasons you'd want to buy it if you were on a budget and didn't want to pay more for a Handycam.
I think if you want a digital video tape format, it's either MiniDV or Digital8, though the former will be easier to find hardware and tapes for as the years go on and Sony's 8mm formats fade more and more into the past. The NV-DS27 is not the best model out there, but hey, if you're on a budget and happen to find one in good, working condition for a decent price (I paid £62), I'd say pick it up.
