Video Cameras

As for MiniDV LP... although the picture quality is identical - the recording is far less robust

Just like VHS LP, it's not unusual for MiniDV LP recordings to only play back correctly in the deck that made the recording... and now that the format has been around for a while, reports are coming in of LP tapes made 4-5 years ago refusing to play properly even on the machines that originally recorded them.

All it takes is the tiny difference in tape path caused by a few years' wear and tear on the transport to render an LP tape unplayable. Indeed, many professional DV decks with MiniDV compatibility simply don't support LP in any way, because of the problems with interoperability.

and much less compatible with insert editing

You'd have to be a masochist to want to linear edit with any DV format! Experience has taught us simply not to bother; if ever we need to do a linear edit with material provided on MiniDV, DVCAM or DVCPro, we just dub it to a proper format (i.e. DigiBeta) first...

If you already have a TV-out card, then it's less of an issue.
We do quite a bit of editing on some Macs (which have built-in FireWire), and normally have to output it back to MiniDV, or via the camera (or deck) to un-digitise it and put it into a mixer, or to VHS or DVCPRO*, or something.

Depending on your TV-out card, the FireWire transfer may be higher-quality.

* Despite having a couple of FireWire ports on the back of it, our JVC DVCPRO deck seemingly needs a firmware upgrade before they'll actually do anything useful. And that'll cost us money. Bah.

Yep - the LP issue is really about compatibility and robustness - and now MiniDV tapes are so much cheaper there is far less of a reason to use it.

You are dead right about DV formats and linear editing - though editing from DV is nowhere near as bad as editing to it. Many organisations shoot on DV formats, but edit to Beta SP (almost all of BBC News and BBC Regional News), Beta SX (especially when using SX/DVCam laptops), or DigiBeta (network productions) without bothering to dub first. Editing from the format doesn't require decent Insert or Assemble editing, just reasonably playback. (The analogue audio cue track on DVCPro makes life slightly easier I believe)

However if you are TXing from DVCPro (like the GSkyB channels) or need to do a DigiCut to it from a NLE like Avid, then timecode accurate insert editing is quite useful, so that your inserts start correctly at 10:00:00:00, if you are using pre-bars and toned tapes.

MiniDV and DVCam are very similar but not identical. One major difference is the way audio is handled. On DVCam decks the audio sampling is precisely locked to the video sampling rate, on MiniDV this isn't always the case.

The video sampling rates are identical in the 625 versions of MiniDV and DVCam - both use 4:2:0 sampling - whereas DVC Pro 625 uses 4:1:1.

I believe that the tape speed and guard bands are different though.

Most DVCam broadcast decks are replay compatible with DVCPro, MiniDV and DVCam (though often you need to change a menu setting for DVCPro replay) - and recordings can be compatible.

If you are able to source the video from a DV based deck via Firewire/iLink/IEEE1394 links and edit in the DV domain (by using Final Cut Pro or the new Free Avid system FreeDV - Windows and Mac versions available from the Avid website) then Firewire output back to the deck is the highest quality link for laying back to tape.

However good a TV output card is (and standard graphics cards TV outputs are terrible) it will never be as good quality as staying DV via Firewire. (Even SDI connections will lose quality as they will require an DV decode/code process)

Yes, there is a Digital 8 camera which allows you to to superimpose moving images onto a still image background. I'm not sure of the model, but it comes with a "photo stick". It is the photo stick which creates the effect.

I've wondered for a while if any domestic video cameras can record pictures in widescreen (16:9). Anybody know?

Most new video cameras have a widescreen facility, but I'm not sure if it's "pure" widescreen.

Most new ones DO have 16:9 modes, problem is, only a minority are "proper" 16:9. Most just cut off the top & bottom of the 4:3 image and reduce the resolution noitcably.