Canon VIXIA HF10 and HF100 flash memory HD cams

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

There should be a law that all but the cheapest cams have:

* Manual control of exposure, shutter, iris and gain
* 24p and 30p. 60p for the overachievers
* Focus ring
* External mic input and manual gain control
* Quick access of all manual features

Some of the cams are oh, so close. But none of the high-end consumer cams at CES had it all...

Hear, hear! A camcorder buyer bill of rights, as it were. I'll sign that petition.

What a contrast from some other technologies, such as those used in the home. Many technical advancements get written into building codes as mandatory. For instance, if you remodel an old bathroom, you'll be required to install a ground-fault interrupter, a single-handle temperature-controlled shower valve, and a 1.6 gallon (soon to be 1.3 gallon) toilet.

I guess we're lucky that electronic products are not so heavily regulated, because advancements would probably come slower. But it still puzzles me why camcorder manufacturers tend to move in packs, as far as the features they offer (and often in the direction of 'dumbing down'). Is price competition really so severe that adding a $25 feature to distinguish one's product from the others will cost too much in market share?

Or to express the paradox in a different way, why do TV/DVD remotes have so many function buttons that most owners never learn to use them all ... yet we don't get a similar proliferation of functional controls in camcorders?

[Paul Kendal]

That stinks....I was hoping that this would be a tapeless HV20!

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Mike Brown

I guess we're lucky that electronic products are not so heavily regulated, because advancements would probably come slower...

I don't really want camcorders to be regulated. I just wish that manufactures would add the features to their top consumer models that would make them worthy of being top consumer models.

[Paul Chiappini]

Originally Posted by Paul Kendal

That stinks....I was hoping that this would be a tapeless HV20!

I agree -- very disappointing. I'll probably go for the HV30 -- maybe even an HV20 on closeout. I'm really tired of tape!

[Jon Fairhurst]

The rep at CES mentioned that HV20 prices could be aggressive as they close out inventory. If you don't need 30p or the black paint job, a closeout HV20 could be sweet...

[James Blunt]

Only one question, when are these things going to hit the street? I am trading in my HV20 for sure, simply copying the video files for editing vs. going through this whole capture/split/inverse telecine would be awesome.

My guess is the video quality will be on par with the HV20, the reason being the HV20 is 1440 but compressed at MPG2, which looks better than MPG4, and the HF10 will be true 1920, you can't really compare bitrates on these cameras because the MPG4 algorithm blows the MPG2 one away, the HF10 could actually have better image quality than the HV20, even with the lesser bitrate. And the raw files from the camera will be oh so small, and natively progressive, man I can't wait :D

Those of your who think the camera will internally upconvert from 1440 are crazy, why on earth would they do that when all canon cameras like this are already processing and outputting 1920 via HDMI, it was only the HDV spec that was holding them to 1440.

The 12x zoom is nice and the smaller size will be awesome, I think Canon will have an even bigger success on their hands with this than the HV20.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by James Blunt

when are these things going to hit the street?

Available in late March... maybe sooner.

[Oliver Reik]

We definitely need to wait until the first comparison shots between HV30 and HF10 / 100 are available. Die sharpness of the HG10 was obviously worse than those of the HV20.

There were also reports, that the difference became even bigger, when motion came into play. Don't get me wrong - the image quality of the HG10 is not bad at all. I am also wondering where to store the data during a long journey or to archiv? Sure - hard drives are cheap these days. However, if you want to be on the safe side, you need to make backups - you are pretty fast going to have a nice set of harddrives on your desk.

For these reasons I will probably go for the HV30. At least if the comparision shots still see the AVCHD cams in behind.

Regards, Oliver

[James Blunt]

Yeah backups is about the only reason that tape is useful anymore, but it is such a pain capturing and dealing with them that I will not miss them. I plan on simply buying as many 8 or 16GB SD cards as needed when on shoots, then backing up to laptop or pc when I get home. 8GB class 6 cards are now 30 bucks at newegg, by the time the camera is available they will be even cheaper. Also flash format is so stable that making backups is much less of a concern than with a HD, one little wrong jolt and you can whipe an entire HD, whereas with flash you can throw them out the window and they will still work, and you can have a lot of them like tapes which is safer having your footage on several cards.

[Mel Enriquez]

James, (and to other as well), do you think SD can, eventually, be used as an archival medium? Perhaps in time a 16gb SD or 8gb will just be U$5-10, would they keep in storage so that after 10, 20, or 30 years, they will still be readable?

The reason I ask is that SD/CF, etc are non-linear or direct access. It's easier to read and go forward or backward quickly. It's easier to transfer them to a computer too, no need for complicated, expensive, or maybe later outmoded devices. And can you imagine too, SD cards archival that is not heavy, not occupying too much as space as tapes?! And I can buy a cheap fireproof safe to keep them for fireproofing! Can't do that with tapes unless I buy lots of them small fireproof safes/boxes. And it's easier to create backups too! Hard to create a 2ndary off-site backup with tapes as the transfer itself is 1-1. With SD, it's minutes or it's as fast as your HD, or writer (and SD of course).

What do you all think?

This is not a trick question, BTW! I really want to hear what you folks think of this. Can we be looking at a better way to archive all these memories?

[Jacob Mason]

Originally Posted by Mel Enriquez

...do you think SD can, eventually, be used as an archival medium? Perhaps in time a 16gb SD or 8gb will just be U$5-10, would they keep in storage so that after 10, 20, or 30 years, they will still be readable?

Yes, it is possible the cost can and will come down enough to justify it as a possible archival medium.
Whether or not that will be tempting enough to consider over disk/disc storage remains questionable, for most people anyways.
I know the solid-state storage solutions are more resilient comparatively speaking to disk/disc. And as a result is said to have a much longer shelf-life for retrieval of data many years later.

SanDisk is reportedly working on Write-Once Memory cards that will cost less than 10 dollars a piece.
This is interesting news for people looking for SD-based archival solutions.
However, the question remains, will it be developed simply as a low-capacity data storage unit, or will it/can it evolve beyond that to compete with disk/disk storage?

If it becomes a marketing campaign that plays between the user's needs and wants, then disk/disc storage will likely still remain the preferred solution considering it's very easy to appeal to consumers wants over needs, and with regard to storage (like megapixels for cameras), most consumers always want more more more, all else be damned.

When Solid-State memory is widely adapted, i.e. implemented into more computers, servers, laptops, etc. as long as capacity and demand grow, you'll see a variety of solid-state based memory card and card devices that will continue to push prices very low, assuming markets (which haven't been in the best of health lately) allow it.

[James Blunt]

I am already using 16GB flash for my important (not media) files backup. My 7 year old CF card still has files on it and is working fine. I would guess that if you simply stored flash in an ideal environment it would last hundreds if not thousands of years. I couldn't find any specific info on this subject. The main degredation occures not from storing it, but from reading from or writing to it. When it is stored the charges in the memory will slowly propogate and lose their values, I would think you could measure this and predict how long it should last, but I haven't seen anything where anyone has done this.

Looks like flash is water proof as well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3939333.stm

Not only is it possible Jacob, it WILL happen, its only a matter of time. Flash is doubling every year (faster than Moore's Law), they already have 32GB CF cards, so in 5 years you will be able to buy a 1TB CF card, my guess is you will probably be able to buy one before that. In another 10 years, 16TB flash drives, of course by then we will probably have exabyte disk drives, but could you even use that much memory? If you had a 1 exabyte drive, you could store 31 years of uncompressed Quad HD (4096×2160 60fps) video!

[Dave Blackhurst]

didn't some software dude say something about never needing more than 256K of memory or something like that... where is that guy?!?! <wink>

My smallest flash drive is larger than my first hard drive... and fits in my pocket, my largest barely holds 1 hour of video, please deliver 1TB ASAP...

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by James Blunt

I am already using 16GB flash for my important (not media) files backup. My 7 year old CF card still has files on it and is working fine. I would guess that if you simply stored flash in an ideal environment it would last hundreds if not thousands of years. I couldn't find any specific info on this subject. The main degredation occures not from storing it, but from reading from or writing to it. When it is stored the charges in the memory will slowly propogate and lose their values, I would think you could measure this and predict how long it should last, but I haven't seen anything where anyone has done this.

I'm thinking blu ray is a better option. Flash memory is volatile memory meaning it's susceptible to everything from static discharge to electromagnetic pulse. CF is a very good implementation with recessed pins etc but I'm not sure I'd be trusting anything archival to it, no matter how cheap per gigabyte it gets.

[Paulo Teixeira]

Original Japanese:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...6/zooma344.htm

English Translated:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...2Fzooma344.htm

Something to keep in mind is that the 149MB file has a bit rate of around 15.5Mbps which is actually a bit less than the HG10’s average so basically the raw footage of the HF10 should look slightly better than that sample. All the other samples are native.