I do not pretend to be an expert in this area, but both systems, 1 chip and 3 chip cameras have to have filters.

In my opinion, the 1 chip cameras have the filters in front of the sensor for each pixel, while the 3 chip cameras have a beam spliting prism and filters for each color.

One word: control. It all boils down to the basic differences between the consumer and professional realms (and it's the exact same situation that has always governed standard definition DV). There are no audio recording management capabilities on the HV10. There are no custom presets, no way to dial in a specific f/stop, no way to smoothly adjust zoom, focus or exposure during shooting. You're going to show up for a paying shoot with this little thing? It will have its limited and specialized applications for certain instances in professional shooting, such as sneaking shots, crash cam, helmet cam, etc. but that's only in situations where nothing else will do.

Yes it is a 37mm threaded filter diameter. Any 37mm attachment will go on there but it had better resolve for HD.

In 1 chip cameras the filters in front of the pixels simply absorb the filtered out colors. In 3 chip cameras the filters are much more sophisticated. Some of the surfaces of the prisms in the prism block are coated by a large number of layers with different optical properties. These surfaces reflect back part of the incoming light and let through the rest depending on the wavelength. So when the light comes into the prism it is going through a surface. But the blue portion of the light is reflected back in the direction of the blue CCD. Then the light goes through another surface where only the red portion is reflected back and is going to the red CCD. So here the advantage is that the filtered out light is not lost unlike in the case of the 1 chip camera filters.

Dear Balazs,

Thank you for the explanation.

I found a reference to how this works on wikipedia.org:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichroic_prism

Dear Dan,

Great link, thank you!

See this page :
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...2%2Fcanon1.htm
Scroll down til you find the paragraph starting "In addition, with respect"

Transaltion isn't great, but its clear what is happening.

Also, read Chris' post here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....59&postcount=2

regards

Hi stu,

thanks for the links. the translated text reads "In addition, with respect to the standard of HDV, record resolution becomes the 1,440×1,080 dot, but with iVIS HV10 from CMOS it quarries out image with the 1,920×1,080 dot, from there has reduced in the 1,440×1,080 dot.", so it does imply a reduction from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080 - definitely not clear on any of the official canon english-language sites.

so, why go 1920x1080 -> 1440x1080, instead of using native 1440x1080 as Sony does in the HC3 since the only output option is HDV? I'd think you'd get a better picture by not having to scale the source image (i.e., recording what you capture vs extra processing required). or, am I wrong? I see that the XH A1/G1 still capture at 1440x1080.

based on the CMOS alone, looks like the HV10 is "newer" than its big brothers HD cams. i imagine canon moving forward with their CMOS (in the form of 3x) technology in:
XL H2
XH G2
XH A2

now, if they did that and added that new avc codec to record 1920x1080x24p that would totally rock.

This is just like the Canon XL2. It produces 16:9 widescreen from a CCD pixel matrix of 960x480 even though what's actually recorded to tape is 720x480. Nobody argues with the fact that it's the best way to do 16:9 standard definition in DV. It's the same thing here. Remember an HDTV display is going to scale it back to 1920x1080 anyway.

It's the same reason why SD cameras use pixel shift. On SD cameras such as the DVX100 the chips are at 720x480 but yet pixel shift is used for higher detail. That is because starting with a higher source will always look better.

Since 1080i HD is really 1920x1080, starting at this point may give you a more natural look when the HDV is stretched back out on your TV.

The Varicam also does this. It uses chips at 1280x720 even though DVCPROHD only uses 960x720 anamorphic pixels. If the chips were 960x720 then when the image is stretched out to 1280x720 you could have some pixelated or aliased edges. Starting with 1280 and scaling down to 960 can smooth the transitions between the details so when it is scaled back up to 1280 on your HDTV the detail edges will be smoother giving a more natural look.

It can be a very small effect but to some it can make a difference.

Also note that while the XLH1 uses 1440x1080 chips it does use pixel shift to try and make that closer to a 1920x1080 chipset. With a single cmos chip you cannot do pixel shift so it is best to start with 1920x1080.

Oh one final thing. With a 1920x1080 chip that means your live component output is a true 1920x1080 pixel image and not pixel shifted or interpolated. This doesn't really matter for consumers however.

Oh one other thing I thought about is the bayer filter. Starting with 1920x1080 pixel cmos sensor means a little bit more detail to work with when a bayer filter is used. While bayer and RGB filtering has gotten a lot better it still isn't as sharp as a 3 chip design. Starting with 1920 using the bayer filter and then down sampling to 1440 should make a more detailed image then starting with a 1440 chip and using a bayer filter.

The hc1 has a 1920x1440 sensor area. No difference there.

hollly sheet, ive been backpacking in colorado and waiting to post a thread about how i wanted a matchbook vertical hdv camera, beautiful, prayers answered

I think you'll want to fix that, I assume it was a mental slip. 1CCD is different from CMOS.

anyone know when this is due in the marketplace. i've read october/november, is that true? isn't about the same time as the xh series?

Starts shipping mid September, it'll be out before the XH camcorders.

thx Chris for continuing to bring us latest+greatest info. i think we all appreciate the amt. of work you do for us =).

~$1,300 for 1920x1080 is a steal for home movies.

it's also great for those who are on a *real* tight budget. i can't wait to test the video caps on my front projector. now, my projector isn't 1080p but @1024x768 i think i can get a good idea of how the visual quality is.

do you think there'll be a lot of pt time videographers using this to replace their SD gear just for the sake of resolution? even 1080 downrez to SD-DVD anamorphic will look better than 480p... will it?

the next few years ought to be very interesting as the lines begin to blur between consumers, prosumers and pros...

I'm going to use it for all my drive by shootings and general walking around camera. I'm hoping that it's low light capability when using it in SD mode is pretty good. I'm constantly on the move and always wanted to be able to scan new potential locations with a handy dandy little camera and this one looks just about perfect. Although I wonder if they're coming out with the AVCHD version of it. Now that would guarantee me buying instantly.