Is the HV20 for me? (Details within)

[Mike Horrigan]

I'm new to this whole thing and I've recently started making short films as a hobby. I'm using my Sister's old camcorder at the moment with no other real equipment... save Premiere Pro 1.5 (Soon to be 2.0).

Would the HV20 be a good camera to move up to? I know that I'll immediately see a big improvement in picture quality. I also plan on picking up the shoe horn mic attachment as well, eventually, maybe some lens attachments. That means the sound I'll be getting should be improved as well.

Is this camera a wise step up? I'm really unfamiliar with the professional cameras and don't have 3 grand to spend.

Would the HV20 be a good camera to start off with if you were in my position?

Opinions wanted...

Thanks,

Mike

[Holly Rognan]

Yes, it is a fabulous camcorder, the best under $2,500 IMO. It has just about everything a consumer would want and the picture quality and set of controls that professionals desire. You can't really go wrong. This cam wont be obsolete for at least years, even when ACVHD starts to bleed through more to professional users. I am planning on getting one or two to supplement my XHA1. It doesn't look professional, but the features are monumental at this price point.

[Brad Vaughan]

Without the slightest ounce of doubt, the HV20 would be a great and wise upgrade IMHO!

With the HV20 your hobby becomes an addiction...a healthy addiction that is! :)

Seriously, it sounds like it would suit you perfectly.

[Mike Horrigan]

Thanks!

One thing though, how do you think it will compare to the new JVC HD Everio?
I'm looking for the camera with the best image.

The file transfer convenience is nice with the JVC but I want the best possible image.

From what I've read... it's the HV20.

Thanks again,

Mike

[Chris Barcellos]

Mike:

Mike, my understanding is the Canon will have 24fps capability, which is something that will take your films to a more film like level. Don't know if the Everio does that. Although I am a Sony owner, for this price range, I thing the new HV20 is the thing to go with...

[Paulo Teixeira]

The JVC HD7 is the only camcorder that has just about every thing you need to produce excellent work including a microphone input built directly into the body and a focusing ring. It records straight to MPEG2 at a resolution of 1920X1080 at a variable bit rate of about 26.6MBPS that goes up to 30MBPS verses 1440X1080 and a constant bit rate of 25MBPS of HDV. So far this is the camcorder to beat as far as features is concerned.

http://www.jvc.com/presentations/everiohd/feat.html
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english...070208/127547/

Plus, there are extra features that JVC haven’t announced yet.

[Dave Lammey]

If you're thinking of the HV20 as anything other than a really nice home movie cam, the biggest question marks are the lowlight ability and the manual controls.

The HV10's lowlight ability is ... well, not good to put it simply. The HV20 is reportedly an improvement in this area but until someone uses it, it's hard to say how much of an improvement.

As for the manual controls, on the HV10, manual focus and exposure are controlled via the little menu dial at the back of the camera, and it's difficult to use (a) without making the entire camera shake a lot, and (b) with enough precision to properly focus, so as to make it almost useless. Luckily the Instant Auto focus is quite good, so for a home movie cam, it's great, but as a camera to make short films, I'd think you'd want much better focus control. The HV20 appears to be an improvement -- though it doesn't have a focus ring, such as the one on the Sony HC1, they have located a decent-sized focus wheel up near the lens, so that it appears that, if one were cradling the camera with the left hand, focus adjustments could be made using the side of your left thumb in a more precise manner than the HV10. Not sure if this wheel is used to control exposure also.

Those reservations aside, I'm excited by the picture quality (as good or better than HV10, which is phenomenal), mic input, and the 24p.

[Dave Lammey]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

The JVC HD7 is the only camcorder that has just about every thing you need to produce excellent work including a microphone input built directly into the body and a focusing ring. It records straight to MPEG2 at a resolution of 1920X1080 at a variable bit rate of about 26.6MBPS that goes up to 30MBPS verses 1440X1080 and a constant bit rate of 25MBPS of HDV. So far this is the camcorder to beat as far as features is concerned.

Or one could get a used HC1 for a lot less $$ ...

[Mike Horrigan]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

The JVC HD7 is the only camcorder that has just about every thing you need to produce excellent work including a microphone input built directly into the body and a focusing ring. It records straight to MPEG2 at a resolution of 1920X1080 at a variable bit rate of about 26.6MBPS that goes up to 30MBPS verses 1440X1080 and a constant bit rate of 25MBPS of HDV. So far this is the camcorder to beat as far as features is concerned.

How does that compare to the HV20 & DV25 compression? I thought that was better...

[Owen Meek]

yes but a let down in the sensor department.. 1.5x3CCD vs 1.2/7 for latitude.

another factor for budget filmmaker is BACKUP! you cant trust HDD, DVD, BlueRay etc and LTO's are not cheap. think of a MiniDV tape as a MiniLTO you might get the occasional drop outs but no CRC errors that kills all..
i will wait till Holographic storage becomes the norm before adapting to anything HDD based because storage is not cheap nor reliable.

[Thomas Smet]

The JVC HD7 only uses chips that are 960x540 pixels and uses pixel shift. While pixel shift works to a certain degree it is anywhere near as good as using a raw 1920x1080 sensor to begin with. Perhaps the JVC may perform better in low light due to less pixels per chip and 3 chips but the HV20 should beat it hands down in well lit footage.

Also who is to say if any specific NLE will support the video from the JVC camera. Some NLE's may be limited to HDV specs and wouldn't work with the footage. footage from the HV20 however will work with any normal HDV capable NLE right out of the box.

Finally you start to run into the problem HVX200 users have with backing up footage. Where do you store and backup all the video from that camera harddrive? With tapes you end up with a $3.00 backup for every 60 minutes worth of HD footage. While blank DVD disks are cheap it would be a pain to have to backup 4.7 GB disks one at a time. What if you shot 20 hours worth of footage for one project? That would make one heck of a lot of recorded DVD's for backup. If you are lucky enough to have a Blu-Ray burner the disks are expensive and they still take a lot of time to burn each disk. Tape is going to be tough to beat for at least a few years yet mainly due to the cheap $3.00 backup costs.

Besides I question if those chips would even resolve the amount of detail to make a difference between 1440 and 1920. You may at best gain a few % of extra lines of detail and thats it.

[Chris Barcellos]

Tape is still the only reasonable answer to common Joes dealing with a lot of filming. Ask the Panny HV200 people what they are doing with all their footage. 60 gigs will on the camera will give you maybe 4 hours. Now you stop and offload, I don't know how long that takes, then what. Your footage is on your 150 gig hard drive, and what to you do with that ? Tape is still the answer because it is a safe storage medium, that you can go back to time and time again.

[Paulo Teixeira]

Originally Posted by Owen Meek

yes but a let down in the sensor department.. 1.5x3CCD vs 1.2/7 for latitude.

another factor for budget filmmaker is BACKUP! you cant trust HDD, DVD, BlueRay etc and LTO's are not cheap. think of a MiniDV tape as a MiniLTO you might get the occasional drop outs but no CRC errors that kills all..
i will wait till Holographic storage becomes the norm before adapting to anything HDD based because storage is not cheap nor reliable.

So are you also saying that the XD-CAM discs aren’t reliable as well.

[Paulo Teixeira]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

The JVC HD7 only uses chips that are 960x540 pixels and uses pixel shift. While pixel shift works to a certain degree it is anywhere near as good as using a raw 1920x1080 sensor to begin with. Perhaps the JVC may perform better in low light due to less pixels per chip and 3 chips but the HV20 should beat it hands down in well lit footage.

Actually, the pixels are 1016x558 and it’s a little bit higher than the HVX200. You don’t hear too many HVX200 users complaining about the picture quality.

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

Also who is to say if any specific NLE will support the video from the JVC camera. Some NLE's may be limited to HDV specs and wouldn't work with the footage. footage from the HV20 however will work with any normal HDV capable NLE right out of the box.

Within a few months we may see some NLEs allowing you to edit AVCHD files natively and that’s a whole lot harder to edit than the MPEG2 files of the JVC. Beside, A lot of NLEs should be fully compatible with the HD7 by the time it comes out.

[Thomas Smet]

yes but with the HVX200 look how there is very little difference between recording 720p and 1080p. You would think there would be a huge difference but there isn't. The HVX200 does look very nice and nice a nice clean soft look to it but it isn't as detailed as other cameras. Perhaps this is ok for some people but we also have to remember the HVX200 is a much higher end camera with 1/3" chips. It is easier to pixel shift larger chips. The smaller the chip is the less light that will hit the fraction of the pixel due to the shifting.

Paulo would you buy a SD camera if it had 360x240 chips with pixel shift? Pixel shift was used on SD cameras to enhance the already native resolution to enrich the image and make it look slightly over sampled. With HD cameras pixel shift is being used to create pixels and detail. Clearly two different methods of use.