Now that the video boys have been and went I find I now need some advice!

In fact they were probably too "grand" for my needs? I have bought a 50quid camera from Maplin and rigged it up in the garden so that Wife can enjoy the wildlife on the 32" Sony. It is "ok" quality wise but I have various issues that I would like to discuss with an appropriate bod.
Budget is about £200 over a year ongoing.

I have sound going as well, a Berry X802 is doing sterling service.

Dave.

What are the issues, Dave?

hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

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What are the issues, Dave?

hugh

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Heh! How long have you got Hugh?!
I suppose my first question is, how much do I have to pay for a decent camera? I have my daughters' Cannon Corder* (Sony Super 8) and that is much better quality as a CCTV camera than the Maplin but much of that I suppose is the lens? It also has focus and zoom of course.

I would LIKE remote pan,tilt, focus and zoom but don't think I shall get that for £200? I will probably go for 2 or 3 cameras and a switcher, it is not a big garden.

Last one for now Hugh. I have recorded to a HDD in a Freeview machine and burned edits to DVD now, does this process "normalize" the audio?
*not waterproof tho!
Dave.

Quote ef37a:

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I suppose my first question is, how much do I have to pay for a decent camera?

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Much less next year than you have to pay today! I'm not an expert on camera models I'm afraid, and it obviously depends on your definition of 'decent'.

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I would LIKE remote pan,tilt, focus and zoom but don't think I shall get that for £200?

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I think you'll need to look at Ip cameras intended for Web-streaming aplications. Things like this perhaps?

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I have recorded to a HDD in a Freeview machine and burned edits to DVD now, does this process "normalize" the audio?

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No.

hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Thanks Hugh,
"decent"? well the one I have is better than early "Friends" and other NTSC crap but only a little, it is what we used to call in the telly trade, a bit "clipped"?

The night vison is dissapointing in that the "lit" area is overexposed, 30dgrs out of the central field of view the black and white scene is quite good. I think some filters might help (daytime as well?) so I am going to look for "jellies" I can cut up.

That TRENDnet looks good but is not weatherproof and that seems to add another 250quid! I would also like to keep away from a computer solution since Wife is just about RC friendly with the Sony! In any event I have a Dazzle gizmo and tried that on my W7/64 HP lappy with a demo of Vegas and I was unable to get the software to see the capture device and the setup kept crashing the PC, not quite a BSOD but close!

No normalization? Got my gains too high then.

I now have to get familiar with camera/video jargon and speccs'

Dave.