HV20 now on Canon Japan web site

Stu Siegal · January 31st, 2007, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wes Vasher

These camcorders hold their value very well. I'm sure you could sell your HV10 and not be out that much money. That's what I would do.

Well, we'll see if you're right. Mine's going up today, with a Mack warranty.

Holly Rognan · January 31st, 2007, 12:45 PM

What is the button 'BLC' on the front. Also, is there a custom button on this as well.

Does anyone know if the focus wheel can be used for iris and zoom?

Wes Vasher · January 31st, 2007, 01:16 PM

BLC is a backlight function if I'm not mistaken.

Dave Lammey · January 31st, 2007, 01:20 PM

One has to wonder how Sony is going to respond to this. First, the A1 seems to have blown the V1 out of the water, and now this camera looks to be an HC7 killer ...

Frankly, this HV20 sounds too good to be true. There has to be a catch.

Chris Hurd · January 31st, 2007, 01:28 PM

There's always a catch! The bummers for me are: no 30p, which for me personally would be much more useful than 24p; no LANC jack (would have been really surprised if it had one), AAS incompatibility with the Canon MA-300 XLR audio block, and the tape-based media. There's nothing wrong with HDV, but I'm ready for solid state or disc-based recording. Too bad it ain't ready for me though.

Wes Vasher · January 31st, 2007, 01:43 PM

I've often wondered why they can't just put a high-speed SD card slot in there and give the user the ability to record the HDV stream right to an SD card. Would SDHC be required? The cards are very affordable.

Thomas Smet · January 31st, 2007, 01:46 PM

The catch may be that the 24p may not be all that easy to deal with if we want a true 24p edit. There is no mention if flags are used at all so it may just be a raw 24p in 60i with no easy way to remove the pulldown.

This of course isn't that big of a deal. I'm sure Cineform we be able to deal with it and some of us used to working with uncompressed footage are used to removing the pulldown via extra software anyways.

I could be wrong and the 24p could be written to tape as a true 24p video with pulldown flags but I doubt it since they mention 3:2 pulldown and 60i.

There is also the chroma pattern issue where 24F will have a better form of 4:2:0 chroma compared to the 24p from the HV20. Of course if you plan on using live HDMI then none of this is really a concern anyways.

I'm really surprised there is no 30p. Since the chip is progressive I would think it would have been easier to do 30p then 24p. Of course I'm not complaining at all. This camera is great and I am already getting ready to sell my HC1 on Ebay. I mostly use it for vacations with my wife but the HV20 may become my new studio cam for bluescreen work.

None of the above is a complaint in any way shape or form and I am very excited about this camera. Anybody want to buy a HC1?

Holly Rognan · January 31st, 2007, 01:56 PM

I am not 100% positive, but I dont think that HDV needs pulldown flag, only 24 frames are used in the codec, to optimize compression; when converting to SD however, in cam should provide the pulldown for DV. This shoudl work without a hitch when editing.

Thomas Smet · January 31st, 2007, 02:04 PM

That is the way 24F works on the pro Canon cameras. But this may be different because they mention recording it as a 60i video. This is why 24F and 30F material doesn't playback from other HDV equipment because it uses a form of mpeg-2 encoding that isn't part of the normal HDV spec. The HV20 however may try to conform to the HDV spec kind of like the SONY V1U which also encodes as 60i but uses flags. We do not yet know if the HV20 will use flags or not. This mode could be designed just to give people the look of 24p and not so much have been intended to edit 24p. I don't really care which way they did it because anything is great. If they did add flags or used the true 24p encoding to tape I will kiss Canon.

Paulo Teixeira · January 31st, 2007, 02:50 PM

The only camcorder that has a slight chance of competing against the FX7 is the JVC Everio GZ-HD7 because the manual features are very similar.

The HV20’s main competition is the Sony HC7. Now that is a comparison that I want to see.

Philip Williams · January 31st, 2007, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

<snip>
I'm really surprised there is no 30p. Since the chip is progressive I would think it would have been easier to do 30p then 24p.<snip>

I wonder if clocking a 1920x1080 sensor progressively at 30fps was just a bit too much. Perhaps there were overheating issues like those that have limited affordable progressive CCDs to relatively low pixel counts? JVC couldn't get their 1280x720 sensor to run progressively without essentially cutting it in half, the HVX is 960x540 so it comes in under the apparently current 1K limit and Canon's 1440x1080 sensors are interlaced. Considering the current state of affairs, it seems pretty ground breaking to bring out any progressive scan frame rate from an affordable 1920x1080 sensor.

In any event, this thing is just cool. With the exception of losing the focus ring, this is essentially the dream HDV Optura I'd always hoped for. The $1099 price is just the icing on the cake. Canon has gone beyond any reasonable expectation here.

Tony Tibbetts · January 31st, 2007, 03:17 PM

This thing is going to sell like crazy.

Ken Ross · January 31st, 2007, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Colin Gould

THe HV20 light sensitivity is apparently 3lux (vs 5lux for hv10), roughly same for night mode...

How is a 40% improvement in low-light 'roughly the same'????

Ken Ross · January 31st, 2007, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

Even if the 24P is recorded into 60i I'm sure if I mind very much. With HDMI we should be able to in theory get a full raster 1920x1080 image at 4:2:2 color and 24p sitting in 60i. We would then just need to remove the pulldown via either software or a product such as Cineform. This is the only HDV camera on the market that can offer this level of quality in a studio environment.

Does anybody know if this camera or the HV10 had a sharpness setting to reduce the electronic sharpening? If it does this could very well be the ultimate keying camera.

Yes Tom, the HV10 does have a sharpness setting that I'm sure will be carried over to the HV20. At its default settings the HV10 show FAR less electronic sharpening than even the Sony A1/FX7. This is one of the things that's always impressed me about the HV10 image....superb detail without artificial sharpness. The HV20 will be one very exciting camera!

Wes Vasher · January 31st, 2007, 04:13 PM

Ken, can you tell us what it's called in the menu? Is it just an on/off feature or are there mutiple sharpness settings?

January 31st, 2007, 12:45 PM	#32
Holly Rognan Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Coalville America Posts: 244	buttons? What is the button 'BLC' on the front. Also, is there a custom button on this as well. Does anyone know if the focus wheel can be used for iris and zoom?

January 31st, 2007, 01:28 PM	#35
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	There's always a catch! The bummers for me are: no 30p, which for me personally would be much more useful than 24p; no LANC jack (would have been really surprised if it had one), AAS incompatibility with the Canon MA-300 XLR audio block, and the tape-based media. There's nothing wrong with HDV, but I'm ready for solid state or disc-based recording. Too bad it ain't ready for me though. __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

January 31st, 2007, 02:50 PM	#40
Paulo Teixeira Trustee Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 1,773	The only camcorder that has a slight chance of competing against the FX7 is the JVC Everio GZ-HD7 because the manual features are very similar. The HV20’s main competition is the Sony HC7. Now that is a comparison that I want to see. __________________ https://www.youtube.com/user/PhotoVi...esEtc/featured https://www.pond5.com/artist/paulot

January 31st, 2007, 01:16 PM	#33
Wes Vasher Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 440	BLC is a backlight function if I'm not mistaken.

January 31st, 2007, 01:20 PM	#34
Dave Lammey Major Player Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Simsbury, CT Posts: 247	One has to wonder how Sony is going to respond to this. First, the A1 seems to have blown the V1 out of the water, and now this camera looks to be an HC7 killer ... Frankly, this HV20 sounds too good to be true. There has to be a catch.

January 31st, 2007, 01:43 PM	#36
Wes Vasher Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 440	I've often wondered why they can't just put a high-speed SD card slot in there and give the user the ability to record the HDV stream right to an SD card. Would SDHC be required? The cards are very affordable.

January 31st, 2007, 01:46 PM	#37
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	The catch may be that the 24p may not be all that easy to deal with if we want a true 24p edit. There is no mention if flags are used at all so it may just be a raw 24p in 60i with no easy way to remove the pulldown. This of course isn't that big of a deal. I'm sure Cineform we be able to deal with it and some of us used to working with uncompressed footage are used to removing the pulldown via extra software anyways. I could be wrong and the 24p could be written to tape as a true 24p video with pulldown flags but I doubt it since they mention 3:2 pulldown and 60i. There is also the chroma pattern issue where 24F will have a better form of 4:2:0 chroma compared to the 24p from the HV20. Of course if you plan on using live HDMI then none of this is really a concern anyways. I'm really surprised there is no 30p. Since the chip is progressive I would think it would have been easier to do 30p then 24p. Of course I'm not complaining at all. This camera is great and I am already getting ready to sell my HC1 on Ebay. I mostly use it for vacations with my wife but the HV20 may become my new studio cam for bluescreen work. None of the above is a complaint in any way shape or form and I am very excited about this camera. Anybody want to buy a HC1?

January 31st, 2007, 01:56 PM	#38
Holly Rognan Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Coalville America Posts: 244	I am not 100% positive, but I dont think that HDV needs pulldown flag, only 24 frames are used in the codec, to optimize compression; when converting to SD however, in cam should provide the pulldown for DV. This shoudl work without a hitch when editing.

January 31st, 2007, 02:04 PM	#39
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	That is the way 24F works on the pro Canon cameras. But this may be different because they mention recording it as a 60i video. This is why 24F and 30F material doesn't playback from other HDV equipment because it uses a form of mpeg-2 encoding that isn't part of the normal HDV spec. The HV20 however may try to conform to the HDV spec kind of like the SONY V1U which also encodes as 60i but uses flags. We do not yet know if the HV20 will use flags or not. This mode could be designed just to give people the look of 24p and not so much have been intended to edit 24p. I don't really care which way they did it because anything is great. If they did add flags or used the true 24p encoding to tape I will kiss Canon.

January 31st, 2007, 03:17 PM	#42
Tony Tibbetts Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 385	This thing is going to sell like crazy.

January 31st, 2007, 04:13 PM	#45
Wes Vasher Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 440	Ken, can you tell us what it's called in the menu? Is it just an on/off feature or are there mutiple sharpness settings?