Canon HV20 Camcorder Release This Month

[Dustin Wilcox]

Has anyone been eyeing the release of this camcorder? Its scheduled to hit shelves in the US in April, not sure when in April but hopefully sooner then later. I am eyeing its release, after a spectacular chase on the 28th yeilded less then spectacular video it became enough to force me into the HD market. I would be interested in the Sony HC7 but am shunned away by the extremely poor reviews i.e low light. Canons first attempt at a consumer HD camcorder appeared to have the same issues as the sony HC models, however while this can't be a trusted source and is certinly not enough to make me buy it as soon as it hits the shelves I found it intriguing as I found a website that stated...

"Japan's Impress Watch are first to get their hands on a unit for review and although we had to read it using machine translation, it's easy to see that they are, er, impressed. Issues with low light shooting that plagued the HV10 seem to have been resolved on the HV20. While the CMOS sensor remains the same size, they've added the noise reduction technology found in their EOS camera lineup to bring low-light sensitivity down from 5lux to 3lux. In fact, the HV20 "eradicates" the HV10's weaknesses "entirely."

I will be patiently waiting for it to hit US shelves and see some trust worthy reviews.

 

[afischer]

I'm in a similar boat... need a new camcorder and wanna go HD. I've narrowed it down to the Sony HC7 and Canon HV20. The HC7 reviews suggest it is poorer in low light than the previous HC models like the HC3. Am really up in the air on what to get, esp since I'm not technologically savvy. Interesting to hear the positive review on the HV20.

 

[cedwards]

The HC7 reviews suggest it is poorer in low light than the previous HC models like the HC3.

If that is the case, I would NOT get the HC7. I have the HC3 now and when the sun even comes close to setting, I have to put it away and only use the FX1. The HC3 works great in bright light, but is the worst I have seen in low light.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

Found this on a write up about the new camcorder at www.camcorderinfo.com, sounds suspicious and I hope that the lower LUX rating is not a bunch of BS and that canon truly found some new way to improve low light preformance with the same imager and processor.

Poor low light performance was perhaps the biggest deficiency in the Canon HV10, and the company has announced that the HV20 will offer improved performance, with the minimum lux now rated at 3 lux (with a 1/30th shutter speed), down from 5 lux in the HV10. This boosted performance comes despite having the same imager and processor as the HV10. Canon could not, at the time of announcement, explain what had changed to increase performance. There are a limited number of ways a manufacturer could tweak performance with the identical hardware to any significant degree, and the 5 lux to 3 lux difference is a substantial claim. Canon has stated that details of improvement will be made available closer to the ship date of mid-April."

 

[Jody Radzik]

I got an HV-20 last week. I haven't really had a chance to use it much, but here's what I've got so far with it:

http://nmupdraft.blogspot.com/2007/03/supercell-over-new-mexico.html

Suffice to say this looks really great at full-res on screen, uncompressed. This was shot on full auto mode.

 

[Esa Tuunanen]

I got an HV-20 last week. I haven't really had a chance to use it much, but here's what I've got so far with it:

Could you test battery life?

In one hard disk and miniDVD camcorder (SDV) review Canon got well shortest battery life so would be interesting to know has Canon improved this area.

 

[Esa Tuunanen]

Found this on a write up about the new camcorder at www.camcorderinfo.com, sounds suspicious and I hope that the lower LUX rating is not a bunch of BS and that canon truly found some new way to improve low light preformance with the same imager and processor.

Size of sensor and amount of pixels might be same but that doesn't rule out more advanced sensor. (ie better signal amplifiers and AD conversion)

CamcorderInfo has now also full review of HV20:

We complained bitterly about the dim picture on the HV10. Sacrificing some noise for a brighter, sharper picture was the answer. The image was noisy in both images, but importantly, the look of the noise has changed. Whereas in the HV10, the noise was of a larger grain, with a lot of visible blue noise, the HV20 has a finer grain noise. We like the improvements this year. To the eye, the 1080i, 60 lux image looked similar to the Sony HDR-HC7 in terms of color reproduction, though the HV20 appeared a little richer. Canon clearly edged out Sony in sharpness, and also produced a cleaner image in the dark greys and blacks. Sony’s blacks were too noisy....

In 1080i, the Canon HV20 produced the same level of sensitivity as the Sony HDR-HC7, achieving 50 IRE at a light level or 7 lux... The HV20 was less noisy than the HDR-HC7: 2.14% versus 3.04%.

Switching over to the 24P mode, the strength of the Canon HV20 becomes clear. This camcorder is a killer in low light. The sensitivity (ability to produce 50 IRE) dropped all the way down to 3 lux, less the half the light required by the Sony HDR-HC7. Not only that, in 24P the color error decreased (8.24) and the noise decreased (1.81%).

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV20-Camcorder-Review/Performance.htm

(battery life test in "Handling and Use" page)


When comparing stills in Impress reviews Canon's noise is definitely much less disturbing smaller grain luminance noise versus blotchy chroma noise in Sony.
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20070207/zooma294.htm
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20070214/zooma295.htm
(check water and sky in wide angle stills)

And then considering more logical user interface for most needed adjustments and good availability of batteries looks like Canon would be clear winner IMO.
(rootkit-virus Sony's extremely proprietary InfoSh*ts cost literally arm and half leg)