What type of video camera do people use to edit professionally these days?

Question

I use to own a Mini DVC camcorder that I would edit video with in Final Cut Pro. Now since my Mini DVC camcorder broke I'm shopping for a new video camera but found myself really confused on what I need to buy for a good professional video camera at this point. It seems like DVC camcorders have been turned obsolete and now my options is a camcorder with a hard drive or a sd card in it, unless there are other options I'm not seeing at the local best buy.
I'm a little hesitant with the SD and hard drive cameras just for the fact that I would think they would be compression the video when saving it to these new formats, and I also don't know what compression scheme there using. With a DVC all I had to do is shoot the video and then hook it up to my computer via firewire and capture it, this would allow me to compress the video while I was capturing it.
With these new cameras I have no clue on what compression scheme they use and if there even a good option for good professional video editing. I'm not looking to spend to much money, I was hoping I could get something between $200 - $400 tops, but I wouldn't spend this type of money till someone gave me a little advice on what format is right to use with computer video editing these days.
Any advice or recommendations would be very appreciated. If the price is right I would take standard definition (just for the fact that my Mac is a G4 and I don't really think it can do HD video that well), but if I could have an option to later shoot in HD that would be very helpful to.

Answer 1

With a DVC all I had to do is shoot the video and then hook it up to my computer via firewire and capture it, this would allow me to compress the video while I was capturing it.
DV video, recorded onto DVC (Digital Video Cassette) tapes, would NOT be compressed during capture. DV, DVCam and DVCPro (all varieties of the DV25 codec) is compressed 5:1 when recorded to tape. When you capture, all that happens is a straight digital transfer of 1s and 0s from the tape to your computer. No further compression was taking place.
What type of video camera do people use to edit professionally these days?
All types. Everything from Flip cameras to HDCam SR.
I'm a little hesitant with the SD and hard drive cameras just for the fact that I would think they would be compression the video when saving it to these new formats
You'd better get over that ... tape-based recording is going the way of the audio cassette.
I also don't know what compression scheme there using
Now you've hit upon what I consider to be the main problem with non-tape cameras; many manufacturers have taken to using codecs that were originally designed for final delivery, like H.264. So they need to be converted to an editable format PRIOR to editing. That's probably the reason that Apple developed the ProRes family of codecs. It's definitely a change in workflow. The other real issue I have with non-tape recording is the lack of a decent archive method. With tape you had a built-in archive medium; the tape itself. But with the new card-based recording, your archive options are limited and more expensive than tape.
If the price is right
And what price would that be? What's your budget?
-DH