Anyone compared the HV20 spec's to the HDR-HC7 spec's?
 

I was just wondering if anyone has done a side-by-side comparison of the published HV20 spec's to those of the HDR-HC7. I was hoping some of you veteran HD camcorder folks could point out the advantages of each. I'm not sure the Canon forum is the best place to get an unbiased opinion, but I wasn't sure where else to post this question.

Primary difference with Canon is the 24fps capability, giving more film like feel to footage. Sony seems to claim better low light.

From the HDR-HC7 spec's:
"Cinematic Mode
Perfect for creating your own movie masterpieces, the HDR-HC7 cinematic mode lends a 24 frame film-like effect to your recordings."

How is this different than what Canon offers?

I just found out that my HDR-HC7 has shipped. The vendor is willing to take it back with no restocking fee as long as the box isn't opened; i.e. I have a chance to to get the HV20 instead if I want. I guess at this point it comes down to comparing spec's since the HV20 won't be available until April. Hmmm, what to do?

This is essentially Sony's Cineframe mode. It nearly halves the resolution and the cadence of the frame rate is completely odd. Do a search on it, that would be able to tell you more than I could. While I haven't seen footage from the Canon. I do know that Sony's "Cinematic Mode" always looks like garbage. Unless they've gone and drastically changed something (which I doubt). From the specs it seems that Canon's mode is true progressive with a 2:3 pulldown.

Compare the predecessors of both companies, the Canon HV10 and the Sony HC3. They are almost the same specs as the upcoming cameras. The footage from the Canon blows the Sony out of the water, add in real 24p and it's not even a competition. The Canon is the clear winner.

My old Canon has what they call 'Frame' mode, which is pure garbage as far as I am concerned. Sort of pseudo progressive with about 2/3 resolution. Every time I shot in that mode I regretted it later. I learned my lesson. I now shoot in the highest resolution the camera has, and then modify it in post as required.

Thanks for the input... it helps.

I assure you the 24p mode on the HV20 is not a "frame" mode. :) The progressive footage from this camera should look amazing.

The Sony HC7 is a completely different camcorder compared to the HC3. For one thing, it finally gets an optical image stabilizer and the thing that makes this camcorder a lot better than the HV20 is x.v.color.
http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_ro...ase/27067.html

Even if you cannot afford an HDMI 1.3 complaint HD TV, the colors of the HC7 may still look better on a standard HD TV than the HV20.

The HV20 should have much better auto focusing.

Between the much better colors of the HC7 and the much better auto focusing of the HV20, it’s really a tossup.

Hi Paulo

Can you explain why you think this new x.v. will look better on a 'standard HD' display. FWIW, I have seen at least one post which indicated a x.v. display would be necessary for the 'better color image'. Are there any other gotchas when it comes the x.v. i.e. NLE's, etc. ?

Tough choices.

Thanks!
JohnG

The Sony's Cinematic Mode is an emulation of a true progressive image.

The HV20's 24p is a true progressive image.

You do need an HDMI 1.3 complaint TV to get all that extra colors but even on standard mode, the camcorder may still be better than the HV20 but who know, I may also be wrong. We’ll just have to wait until there are proper reviews to be for sure. For now, this feature is of no use to most people but in several years you’ll wish you bought a camcorder with that feature.

On the case of having an HDMI 1.3 complaint screens, I hope they won’t be too expensive this year. The Sony 70” model is a whopping 33 grand. Samsung should come out with smaller, much cheaper versions soon.

I don’t think you need anything extra to edit HDV video with the better color standard and besides if you do, the NLEs will be upgraded.

If the footage from your Canon looked bad in "Frame" mode, it's not the cameras fault! You are not loosing 1/3 resolution or anything. You need to learn to shot the lower frame rate, that's it.

Mike

Hi Mike, any tips on how to do that?

Anything that helps me learn would be great.

Thanks,

Mike

It is just that that 24f, 24p, or film have to be shot with great attention to movement. Film I think tends to just show blur if there is too much movement and slow shutter speed, which is one desirable thing about film! We have became used to it, and like it.

With video you get motion blur and motion artifacts. You need to learn the limits of motion with 24f or 24p. 30f or 30p is easier to work with, but you still have to watch it.

I am not that good at this part, but more light lets you use faster shutter speeds and I would think that would help with the blur.

When we only had 1080i and 720p, the latter was better for sports, because it was progressive and captured movement better, with each frame being whole. With 1080p that is good too.

I’m not going to say that I know the best work flow for these situations, because I don't. But shoot your 24f or 24p with attention to motion and they will both be great in the end. Canon's 24f is not the problem.

Mike

The only thing I can add is that the HV10 and HV20 (using the same autofocus system) does have better focusing. That's already been proven in the HV10. However the 'deep color' of the Sony cams has yet to demonstrate an improvement. In fact I've read a couple of user reports on the HC5 and there appears to be no reported improvements in color rendition. It is indeed a fact that you must use a display capable of 'deep color' to realize improvements, if any. The whole 'deep color' thing remains unproven at this point. The HDMI group is very good at releasing marketing hype, much of which is not proven and quite exaggerated.

Anyone that owns a plasma or fixed pixel device should look at their 'before & after' pictures of displays with HDMI 1.3 and those without. They're really quite comical since I've never seen a recent display with color banding as bad as they depict on their website for the non-HDMI 1.3 display.

Well, I never said that a standard HD TV will show better colors with x.v.color enabled on the camcorder. It shouldn’t make a difference. What I did say is that the colors of the HC7 may still be better than the HV20 and yes I could be wrong.

Once x.v.color is enabled on the camcorder and hooked up to an HDMI 1.3 complaint HD TV, that’s a different story.



Personally I wouldn’t choose either camcorder and instead, I’d get the JVC HD Everio GZ-HD7.

I have used both the HC1 and HC3 and I own an HV10 and I personally much prefer the colour on the Canon. The reds and yellows are much more natural to my eyes - the saturation just seems a touch high on the sony models. It will be interesting to see how the HC7 fares

Between the HV10 and the HC3, I would have also chosen the HV10.
The camcorders this time are much more different.

Only we don't know what that story is. As I said, the HDMI committee has been very good at marketing hype, but hasn't delivered much other than HDMI hassles that most people have had to go through to get HDMI devices to work and communicate properly with each other. For the average consumer, HDMI has been a nightmare.

So will it bring improvement in color with HDMI 1.3 displays? Nobody has any idea. What we do know is that their website is filled with exaggerations.

There *is* a Sony board on this site as well. Either way, you'll get your share of "unbiased" responses. ;)

One difference between the two that doesn't seem to come up often is that still images are stored on a Memory Stick for the Sony camcorder and miniSD card for the Canon one.

Your mileage may vary but personally, I'm not a fan of Memory Sticks, even if the performance is *slightly* better (with the Pro Duo). I have miniSD cards for other devices and would like to stick with those for the time being. The last thing I need is to have *another* type of card to look for in my house.

This may be a trivial point but it's one of those little pet peeves. :)

Paul, even the posted pix on the Sony site are so subtle, it's nothing you couldn't get with a slight adjustment of the color intensity or hue control. In fact, it's really impossible to tell which picture more faithfully reproduces the colors as they were. I will tell you this, I shot the footage at Best Buy with the "XV" color on and off. I could see little to no difference on my plasma. I honestly see little to be gained from this addition. Perhaps with an HDMI 1.3 display the differences might be greater, but judging from those pictures on the Sony site, I doubt it.

I hope you’re not referring to the link I just posted today because it’s not a Sony site, it’s the Watch.impress site.
Again, I have always said you need a compatible TV to really view the differences.

Yes, I am referring to those. Remember I'm also judging by these pictures from that link. The changes in the colors on the flowers were subtle at best. I'm assuming these pictures were designed to show the difference. All they did was give me the impression of a monitor that was adjusted slightly in its hue & color intensity.....something you could do now with any camera.

I honestly don't see this as a meaningful improvement in picture quality. I'd like to see lower noise in the camera. My A/Bs at Best Buy showed the Canon counterpart, the HV10, to be significantly quieter with more depth and an overall more professional looking picture.

I highly doubt anybody is ever going to be able to sit down and say "hey that looks like it was shot with X.v color." This is such a silly thing to be concerned about on a camera. There is far more that will mess up your image then color that may be 1% off. Even then it is sort of a subjective point of view on what makes better color. Remember the human eye isn't very good with colors so to me this seems like more of a marketing stint then anything that is going to make a huge difference that stands out right away. Sure if you stick two displays side by side some people may notice but watching something on it's own nobody will ever be able to tell.

I think we are all starting to read into numbers way too much with this stuff. I mean it was fun at first but even I am starting to get sick of this garbage. Here is the thing, even if Ken doesn't have a HDMI 1.3 display to me it doesn't matter. The fact is that his display looked great regardless of what color format was used and thats the point here. It looks great to almost everybody watching it in the current way. I don't see anybody ever complaining about something as silly as this.

Why are there still all these topics in the Canon forum about non Canon cameras? I mean come on Paul. It sure does seem like you are here trying to steer as many people as you can away from the HV20.

Me myself I am very interested in color theory (interested mostly as set apart from knowledgeable :). It is a fact that sRGB has a limited color range and that the human eye can see many colors that simply cannot be reproduced by adding quantities of the fixed R, G and B wavelenghts.

The key to understanding xvYCC is in 3D color space (yes, to boldly go...). I found this page to be helpful:

http://bsg.to/mt/archives/200607/2006-07-08T11:51.shtml
I did not try to have it translated.

Search for "Laser TV". Above that you will see two images. On the left, the RGB color range in 3D. On the right a flat image of that, with the indication that xvYCC can reach into the corners of that rectangle, beyond the RGB box. In fact, chroma values are luma-independed if I may believe this.

So if it seems to be superior, why don't we see the difference? I guess because we are watching all this superior stuff on RGB displays. Like trying to listen to stereo music, throug a single speaker. Maybe, just maybe, come display embedded color profiling may be able to get xvYCC sources to display slightly better because of specific knowledge of the exact primary colors used in that display.

But for the real gain, we should look at this stuff at displays capable of xvYCC reproduction. I think a web search on Laser TV should get me started... later!

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Edit: Laser TV may not be the thing before 2099... Maybe LED backlit screens are closer to release.

As everybody keep pointing it out, you do need the proper display to notice the difference if your camcorder has x.v.color.

This thread was about the differences between the HC7 and the HV20. It was never just about the HV20 to begin with, was it? No. Also, I never said the HC7 was a better camcorder than the HV20. I said it was a tossup and I would have trouble choosing between them. As I said in another post, I would rather purchase the JVC HD7 than any of these because it has features that I like. Besides, I wasn’t even the one that started this thread.

But Paul, I keep mentioning that the posted pictures in your link ALREADY show what the differences are supposed to look like. I think you'll agree they're very subtle at best and nothing that couldn't be achieved with a slight increase in color saturation on your display device.

One of the reasons I posted that link was to show that the author saw a big difference with a compatible screen. Basically your colors is increased by 1.8X but the camcorder most likely have very bad auto focusing and since the Canon HV20 will beat it hands down in that category, it really wouldn’t make a difference which one you buy even if you do have an HDMI 1.3 complaint screen. If one of them had a focusing ring around the lens, then that's the one I would recommend.