Canon HV20 demo is up

[Hulk]

http://usa.canon.com/app/html/See_The_Difference/hd_cmos.shtml

Looks very good. Especially considering this appears to be a dimly lit room. Encoding bitrates peak around 18Mbps. I would like to see the original video to see how much of the noise is due to encoding and how much was on the original HDV tape.

[Jerry Jones]

Hmmm.

Didn't know they got permission to record video of my wife.



(No, she's not really my wife.)

You're right; that's great looking video.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

That 24p mode of the HV20 disappoints me.

The sharpness seems to take a hit.

What do you think?

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

That 24p mode of the HV20 disappoints me.

The sharpness seems to take a hit.

What do you think?

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

I agree. I don't see anything in that 24p video that draws me to it.

[Jerry Jones]

The thing that makes the Canon camcorders appealing is the image quality in good lighting.

They've practically eliminated noise while maintaining amazing sharpness/detail.

That's what they've done best.

I'd like to see Canon do an AVCHD hard disk camcorder and I'd like to see if they can eliminate the noise that seems to be a problem with the models released by other manufacturers to date.

Canon's weakness seems to be low light performance.

On the other hand, the samples they've posted seem to suggest that the low light performance isn't quite as bad as some reports suggest.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

If they would just take the HV20 and replace the tape transport with a hard drive I would buy it. It could then be altered to record using a VBR format for even better image quality.

While AVCHD does have the ability to provide better image quality at the same bitrates as MPEG-2 it may be that the heavy encoding/processing necessary for that to happen in real time may be too high for the electrical and thermal design limits of current camcorder. Hopefully they will get it right with the next generation of AVCHD camcorders.

[Jerry Jones]

If they would just take the HV20 and replace the tape transport with a hard drive I would buy it. It could then be altered to record using a VBR format for even better image quality.

While AVCHD does have the ability to provide better image quality at the same bitrates as MPEG-2 it may be that the heavy encoding/processing necessary for that to happen in real time may be too high for the electrical and thermal design limits of current camcorder. Hopefully they will get it right with the next generation of AVCHD camcorders.

I suppose I'm inclined to look at AVCHD more favorably -- even with the early models.

Here are some reviews of the $649.95 Sony HDR-UX1 AVCHD DVD disc camcorder, which features HDMI, manual focus ring, external microphone and headphone jacks and can fit about a half hour of highest quality 12Mbps AVCHD onto a double layer DVD+R disc.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_Handycam_HDR_UX1/4505-6500_7-31979961.html

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HDR-UX1-Camcorder-Review.htm

http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11994

It's interesting to note that CNET's reviewer -- Lori Grunin -- praised the video of the AVCHD Sony HDR-UX1 picture as "sharp, saturated, low-noise video."

CamcorderInfo.com's reviewer thought the video had a little too much noise due to the AVCHD compression.

All agree that the Canon HV10 has great video in daylight conditions.

However, they also seem to be in agreement that the Canon HV10's low light performance is dismal... causing the picture to darken way too much.

The low light performance of the HDR-UX1, on the other hand, was considerably better.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV10-Camcorder-Review/Performance.htm

Ouch. We thought Canon fixed this problem - but the old beast that haunted Canon camcorder reviews on this site for years is back, with a vengeance, ready to mess with their new rockstar model. The large 1/2.7” CMOS sensor on the HV10 should provide a large surface area on which to capture light, and the surface area of the pixel-sized sensors on chip is really what low light performance is all about. Or so you'd think. In order to determine performance, we looked at the image in 60 lux and 15 lux light levels. At 60 lux, the Canon HV10 failed to impress. Somehow, the sensor was not able parlay size into an effective defense again the dreaded forces of dim lighting. The image was very dark, and lost a good deal of color information. It was disappointing – some camcorders with equally large sensors don’t look this dark until 15-20 lux. Noise also picked up a good deal, and it created a fuzzy wash over the whole image. Thankfully, the fact that it’s got the resolution of high definition prevented the noise from obscuring most of the fine detail. The standard definition 6- lux did not fare as well. It had all the same problems, but lost a lot of detail.

The UX1's performance was much better in low light.

And the UX1 can be purchased at B & H for fifty dollars less than the HV10:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/446815-REG/Sony_HDRUX1_HDR_UX1_AVC_HD_DVD.html

I wondered about the "noise" reported by CamcorderInfo.com.

Sure it might be something the trained eye might notice.

But what about normal consumers?

Do they notice it?

Well, if the reviews on Amazon -- from purchasers -- are any indication, the UX1's video quality is perfectly acceptable HD... no noise issue is reported by the rank-and-file buyers here:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-HDR-UX1-High-Definition-Camcorder-Optical/dp/B000GX43E0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4489245-2980826?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1178821815&sr=8-1

They seem to be overwhelmingly satisfied.

In addition, the HV10 is tape-based as you mentioned.

If you need capacity and very cheap storage and you don't mind working with tape, then maybe this isn't such a big problem.

But I find the lack of a microphone input and the lack of a headphone jack and the lack of HDMI to be equally disappointing -- especially when the HV10 costs fifty dollars more than the UX1, which has all of those features.

The HV10 is small; that's good.

The UX1 is like a brick; some people might like the heft and some might want something smaller.

Aside from the questions about noise, the only other weakness with the UX1 is the fact that you would need to change out the mini DVDs fairly often if you have a lot of shooting to do all at once.

But let's face it.

A lot of people who need to shoot high capacity stuff might only need standard definition and the UX1 can do that too and get much more video onto the discs!

I still think that -- for the price -- the Sony HDR-UX1 is a great deal right now.

The Canon HV10 is cute and produces stunning day images.

What about the Canon HV20?

Well, it's significantly more expensive.

I don't like those 24P samples; so that's no attraction for me.

And the low light performance seems to again be a big issue:

There are differences in the HV10 and HV20’s 1080i image, though. We saw a bump in overall brightness in 1080i, most likely due to an increased gain. This had the effect of making the image noisy, seemingly noisier than the HV10, but overall preferable. We complained bitterly about the dim picture on the HV10. Sacrificing some noise for a brighter, sharper picture was the answer. The image was noisy in both images, but importantly, the look of the noise has changed. Whereas in the HV10, the noise was of a larger grain, with a lot of visible blue noise, the HV20 has a finer grain noise.

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV20-Camcorder-Review/Performance.htm

The graininess in low light was considerably better than you'd see in a camcorder with a smaller sensor, though in extremely dim conditions, color fidelity and overall dynamic range drop precipitously, leaving largely monochrome video with very little shadow detail. Canon's night mode does little to fix this, instead dropping the shutter to such a slow speed that you end up with video that looks like lazy stop-action animation.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Canon_HV20_camcorder_Mini_DV_HDV/4505-6500_7-32172625.html?tag=readfull

And the HV20's price is just over $900.

I think that's asking a lot of money for a camcorder that doesn't perform so well in low light.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[ND66]

Is there any decent software (or any software for that matter) to edit the AVCHD content?

End of last year, If I remember, there wasn't anything out there.

Andy.

[Jerry Jones]

Is there any decent software (or any software for that matter) to edit the AVCHD content?

End of last year, If I remember, there wasn't anything out there.

Andy.

1. Corel (Ulead) VideoStudio 11 Plus: http://tinyurl.com/yqbxf7

2. Avid (Pinnacle) Studio Plus 11: http://tinyurl.com/3duxvf

3. Sony Vegas 7 (via downloadable update): http://tinyurl.com/22zzh3 (Sony AVCHD camcorders only)

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[ND66]

No MSP yet, huh?

Thanks Jerry.


Andy.