Been wanting to resume streaming and YouTube videos, specific to gaming activities, wood crafting, and other miscellaneous projects. Â I actually have a small number of existing videos, from the time frame of my prior website presence, but have not had the opportunity or means to create additional content. Â Almost all of my gaming these days is live rather than computer based, so I need a camera to record the action. Â I tried with my phone, as is fairly common these days, but unfortunately I don’t have enough storage capacity to make that a viable option.
So after a bit of negotiation, I ended up with a bargain basement camcorder on order from Amazon. Â Its a Seree HDV-515 model camcorder, and from the brand name, you can likely tell that it is a cheap knock-off model. Â It is also several years old, so the storage is limited to SDHC (max of 32 GB). Â That should not be a big problem though, since it is only partially capable of 1080p recording, and I intend to use 720p for a better frame rate. Â As of March 7, the model has a list price of $65, so it certainly won’t break the bank.
My challenge though is the lengthy of our gaming sessions – it is not uncommon to have a 6 or 7 hour game. Â My intent would be to record all the action as single long video, and then filter, edit, and cut the video down to a reasonable size (those game sessions tend to have a lot of side conversations).
The other concern is audio – the HDV-515 doesn’t have high marks for audio recording. Â So I may end up having to experiment with a laptop-based audio recording, and then match them up during the edit process. Â Not many concerns about that, I don’t expect it will be difficult, but it does add another step to the process.
Finally, I am concerned that at 720p, it may not be detailed enough for games like Armada to show up clear enough to show all the pieces and markers. Â That is part of the reason I argued for a higher end camera, but in the end, price was the major deciding factor, perhaps after a few videos I will have a stronger case for a better option.
Camera should be here in time for our planned Kitchen remodel this weekend, so that will give me plenty of material to test and start with.
