fdl

I want to get my first camcorder. My main requirements are picture quality and HD capable.

But I'm stuck on format. From what I've read, HDV/MiniDV while old, is still king for picture quality. The DVD recorders are convenient, but you are stuck with noticeably compressed video (These are last on my list at the moment). There are some new developments in the HDD cam space, namely AVCHD, but there are challenges with editing and the quality is still not up to minidv standards.

It seems, like in a year or two, there will likely be a higher quality hard drive based format to HDV/MINIDV, afterwhich HDV/minidv cameras will likely become outdated very quickly IMO.

Thoughts?

fdl

I think if I were to go ahead and buy today, this is probably my front runner.


http://usa.canon.com/app/html/HDV/HV20/index.shtml

zamo

I had an HV20 but returned it. I think AVCHD is the way to go (as Sarlacc said on a previous thread). Drag & Drop is key here, something that miniDV tapes can't do.

Dan Martin

I've been looking at them for about a year now, and I think I'll give it another year for the market to settle a bit. After being burned on my first HD purchase, I'm going to let the market decide what platform I should go with.

jupitersolo

Dan, Which item?

Dan Martin

A $4000 HDTV that is all but useless now. It's not 1080P nor does it have any HDMI inputs.
I've got a useless DVI input and 720P to keep me going until it dies.

jupitersolo

Sounds like my first HDTV. Have a party and have someone "fall" into it. Projection TV?? Then claim on H.O.

fdl

Yes but AVCHD still falls short of HDV in terms of picture quality, from all reviews I've seen.

Why did you return the HV20?

srika

srika

that's disappointing. how was the image quality? what were the main reason(s) why you returned it?

edit: oops fdl asked that too :silvermad

Sarlacc

HDV BLOWS.

MiniDV isn't king of anything

DVD recorders are the worst of the bunch.

There will never a "good" time to buy because the technology and compression ratios will keep getting better and better every 6 months. So, you just gotta pick something and go from there.

I still think the Panasonic/Sony AVCHD format will win out in the consumer world. AVCHD isnt JUST HDD recording, its also SD card recording pending the camera.

soopa

I just bought a Canon HG10 from Amazon (delivered today). It was down to $729 last week, I couldn't resist with Noah's first christmas coming up.

We are definately in a transition period for camcorders, in an ideal world I would have waited until next fall. As it is though, nearly all manufacturers are transitioning to an AVCHD HDD/SD system... as they should be - IMO.

The HG10 is currently king for PQ so far as AVCHD cam's go. If not for that, I'd almost prefer the Sanyo Xacti HD1000. It can be found for around $550, has a nice small form factor and is completely SD based which is a major + for convenience.

I do think next year we will see 1080i camcorders peak. The only problem is consumer expectations will call for 1080p technology (needlessly) and we will see yet another 1-2 year transition as all cams move in that direction... requiring more storage... more compression... etc.

soopa

The image quality of the HV20 is great. The problem is it uses annoying old inconvenient MiniDV.

LuvMyTSX

I started looking at camcorders very early this year as well, and I got confused with all the different formats and their pros & cons, so I gave up for now.

zamo

Forwarding and Rewinding the tape really. It just made me remember my conventional miniDV camera, and made it very time consuming to capture the footage. Other than that, the image quality is superb.

fdl

I'm not doubting that AVCHD will be the clear format of choice down the road, all signs seem to be pointing that way. But as of right now... AVCHD cameras seem to lag slightlly in picture quality. primarily due to ACVHD cams with 15mb/s video vs 25 mb/s of HDV. Once chip prices comes down and AVCHD cameras can reach closer to 25mb/s, AVCHD cams can best HDV easily, as its a more efficient codes.

So new cams are usually announced in the fall? Maybe I can wait that long ....

Sarlacc

Digitizing Tape is sooo time consuming, boring, and annoying.

Tape dropouts can ruin your family films, especially in HDV where you lose 15 frames instead of the usual 1 or 2 in StanDef.

Having to use your camera as a deck is really bad, and puts terrible wear and tear on your video heads. Which will break down your camera very quickly and will affect the quality of your image in the long run.

Going with HDD/SD is the way to go. Its simple import and edit. No wear and tear on moveable parts. No worrying about tape drop outs.

I have been using a professional version of Flash capture for well over a year now. Its called P2 from Panasonic. It was so hot when it first came out early last year that I ended up buying one and making a deal with a rental house who rents it for me. Its been a great investment to date.

Solid State is the future.

soopa

New cams are usually announced in January-February and available September-October.

This year was an exception as most major players released new products each quarter trying to keep up with changes in technology and demand. It seemed to be a strategy that worked out since 2007 was the best year for camcorder sales ever.

I'm not sure you're going to see anything more "concrete" next year than you're seeing now. It will probably be 2-3 years before the market cools, technology matures, and advancements stabilize.

Have you watched any raw video out of some of the latest high-end AVCHD cams? I'd be surprised if you still think PQ lags.

Sarlacc

fidizzle, you're going by hearsay to read that AVCHD is "slightly lesser" in quality to HDV.

1) There are a million factors to image quality, not just the compression format.

2) again its hearsay from someone else.

Use your own eyes to see the format and judge for yourself. I'm willing to bet you couldn't even differentiate between the two in a side by side.

Dan Martin

I wish there was just one standard, or at least one dominant format that I could jump to. There are just too many competing media and formats that are making me uneasy at the moment. It sounds like AVCHD is probably the way to go, but I don't know much about that standard to know if it will support 1080p cams down the road.

I don't really care if I have 1080p recording ability since I can only play back at 720p, but if next year all the cameras move to 1080p, I just want to make sure that software and media will still be available for my lowly 1080i camera. I can't afford to buy new TV's, disc players, and camcorders every year because there's some new standard out.

I'm really tempted to just get a standard definition recorder for dirt cheap now, then buy an HD camera when the dust settles. Truth be told, for home movies, DVD-quality is more than adequate for me. It also takes less space and should be quicker to post process I would imagine...

Billiam

When looking online, the consensus seems pretty clear. AVCHD's image inferiority may be hearsay but it is definitely prevalent to one degree or another pretty much anywhere you look on the Internet. Personal reviews, C|net, camcorderinfo.com, all seem to have the same opinion. Eyes are of course the ultimate judge, but you obviously also have to read stuff when you're doing your homework.

Regarding HDV's "drawbacks," I just don't get it. Is it really so god awful painful to do a one-time import of your footage? Sure that would suck royally if you're pouring through hours of dailies on a regular basis, but for the occasional family/friends/travel event? Regarding dropouts , it's obvious that they can be a big problem with HDV. But that's only if they happen. How likely are dropouts to actually occur if you use quality tapes, run them through once for your import, and them shelve them? I personally have no clue but it would seem to be an obvious question.

zamo

Problem with tapes is that it is also very time consuming to duplicate a master, in DV format. With AVCHD you can have multiple masters burned onto DVDs or copied to multiple hard drives or any solid state memory.

Right now I am transferring some miniDV footage. I am using the Panasonic crappy software and, man, what a PITA. I selected the option to auto-index and it did so by going forward 1 hour of tape in real-time! Now it is capturing onto DV AVI so I can burn regular DVDs.

With AVCHD it is drag, drop and transcode. Granted, you need CPU power but it will get better in the future. Many companies are betting on AVCHD, Canon, Panasonic, Sony, name your brand. It might be the codec of choice.

Billiam

Simple, don't make a tape duplicate master with HDV. Import raw footage from tape, immediately backup resulting files, shelve. The only difference is step one is capture from tape instead of copy from flash or hard drive.

soopa

There is some truth to it, but consensus is based largely off 2007's first run of AVC based consumer camcorders.

AVC is not inherently lacking in image quality. We skipped 3 camcorder generations this year. From January to October most manufacturers had at least 3 generations of product.

Along with that AVC gained alot of software support for the home user, which also has a noticeable effect on the end result.

AVC is being used EVERYWHERE for professional recording, distribution, and broadcast. It is just another variant of the ubiquitous MPEG-4/H.264 format. The only mainstream alternative is Microsoft's VC-1 format which, in the realm of encoding features and picture quality per bitrate is in many ways inferior to AVC... especially in regards to Macro-blocking... which is pretty much the only noticeable compression artifact that you or the average consumer will typically notice.


As for HDV, come on, it's nearly 2008... you can't still be advocating a tape based format can you? It's simply archaic.

soopa

Also, noting why PQ has improved immensely with AVCHD over the course of this year...

When AVCHD consumer camcorders started hitting the market in 2006 the average storage capacity was 3GB. The average capacity now is around 40GB (and infinite in the case of SD based devices).

To most consumers recording time (and battery time) are the only specs they care about, so manufacturers are/were over compressing video to tout recording time on measly 3GB HDD's.

Storage capacity has increased, compression has decreased, and this trend will continue.

soopa

There are already 1080p/24 camcorders on the market. Canon HR10 for instance.

For the reasons you mentioned, there's just not yet the demand (or the need) for them to saturate the market.

Nonetheless, there's no reason software would support a 1080p cam and not a 1080i.

zguy95135

Mini-dv is really a terrible format. It's got so little UER (usable exposure range), its grainy, the chips really allow for little depth of field manipulation, the resolution is really low etc etc. HDV isn't bad but its on it's way out, in the pro-sumer/professional field at least. For a normal person either one would be fine though.

Don't get a DVD camcorder though, they're totally not worth the money. You can't edit your footage at all.

Sarlacc

AVC is a consumer created format. I haven't been on any HD shows that even considered that format because none of the prosumer/pro cameras use that format. This is not to say some smaller reality shows or docs aren't using them, or someone in the post scene isn't compressing for it on some things.

But overall, HD in the professional world is still tape based (tapes look the old Beta tapes, bascially a carry over from beta. digibeta) Harddrives, or P2 panasonic solid state.

Sony has also just come out with their own prosumer solid state.

Most still go with tape. Many producers and even some shooters are still worried about not having a hard copy back up. They idea right now of having media "in thin air" freaks them out. And of course its understandable when you are shelling out millions on a project. Financing companies also offers tax breaks and rebates for shows who shoot on a master tapes and hand in a set of clones for back up.

Sadly, the pro is still very tape based, even in film projects where the footage is telecined to tape, digitized in the computer, and timecode is used to make refernce when going to back to cut the actual film negative. Though more and more and more films are being directly scanned into the computer for final fx and print making/distribution...the basic editing structure is still tape based.

I am prepping for a Toyota job tomorrow using a camera called the Sony F23. Its a 4:4:4 tape based HD camera...look it up for shits and giggles.

fdl

The purist, will likely look down on ANY compression be it HDV, or ACVHD.


ACVHD, running at full specs (25 mb/s?) will definitely be better than HDV. But I don't see any consumer cameras doing this yet. It's still too cost prohibitive.

Sarlacc

AVCHD is in the same realm as any decent HDV camera pricewise.

ANY compression does suck...but there isn't HD being shot (pro or otherwise) in a purely loseless form. It's toooo fucking memory intensive. And compression isnt always bad, it depends on the type, how it was done, and how much was done.

fdl

Right, but not running at full spec (24mb/s).

Sarlacc

So, wait another 6 months or less.

But like I said.....Its all numbers. And honestly I doubt you'd be able to even tell the difference between a current comparable hdv/avchd camera.

People complain about the spec sheet numbers all the time. I call them pixel counters (carry over from still photography.) They are too concerned with those numbers to actually bother to sit down and use their own eyes.

Example...look up the spec on the Panasonic HVX-200. Its a prosumer P2 HD camera. 1/3" chips, 4:1:1 color space, more compressed, less latitude.

Now look at the specs for a Panavision Genesis. Full 35mm chip, 4:4:4 color space. WAY less compression. Its a full out professional studio camera that has shot films like Superman Returns, Apocolypto, Chuck and Larry, etc.


I went to two extremes of the spectrums and both are used in pro productions all the time. I am saying this because you have most likely seen footage from the HVX200 on television...But you'd never know it against another HD camera. There is even an FX shot in The Departed where a HVX was used...and that was shot on Film. HVX also has some shots in Spiderman 3, and the international version of Munich where an entire scene was shot with the HVX and edited in. There are more.

But I'm basically saying...let your eyes be the final judge. Numbers are only a reference.

dom

Canon Announces Dual Flash Memory High Def Camcorders

http://www.canon.ca/english/index-pr...1&id=648&arc=0

Sarlacc

ugh there is a lot of bullshit in that article you have to weed out.

And 30p Progressive mode That is one redundant title right there. And in the HD world fast action etc is done at 60.

dom

Point being, fdl was looking for an alternate format, flash is it.

Sarlacc

They dont tell you how much flash, either.

And if its going to be flash, its not much different then going SD card.

While their idea behind on board flash is a good. I'd have been more excited to hear it that included two SD card slots, which is what I mistook the announcement for.

It is WAY better then HD though, I give them props for that.

dom

Built in 16 or 8 GB of flash depending on model.

I think I'm going to pick up the FS10. 8GB internal flash plus the SDHC slot. Not High Def but it will be cheap and hold me over until the High Def format is settled.

Billiam

One interesting tidbit I noticed in that press release was...
So does that means the camera has a sensor that's actually native 1920x1080? From what I've read many (if not most) of the currently available prosumer HD cameras are actually using 1440x1080 sensors.

Billiam

Here's an interesting tidbit I just stumbled across while browsing CES coverage. Panasonic's next Blu-Ray player (DMP-BD50) will enable play back of AVCHD video from the device's built in SD card slot. Very cool and hopefully something that other manufacturers take up.

Billiam

For reasons I won’t bore you with, I’ve been on a camcorder research binge the last several days. Some findings that may be of benefit to anyone mulling over a purchase at the moment.

Image Quality
There seems to be a consensus that the most recent generation of AVCHD camcorders have substantially narrowed the supposed gap in image quality between AVCHD and HDV. The complaints listed in reviews/opinions of the current AVCHD camcorders are now the sorts of things you would see when simply comparing two different models of cameras that use the same format (color quality, degree of chromatic aberration, IS benefits, etc…)

Progressive mode recording (24p/30p)
If you’re enamored of the progressive recording modes (24p and 30p) do your homework. Things get real complicated real fast. To the degree I looked into it, it did not appear that any of the current AVCHD consumer camcorders offer true/native 24p or 30p recording. I know for certain that Canon’s latest does not.

AVCHD is indeed a resource hog
It in fact does take a substantial amount of computing horsepower to view and edit native AVCHD footage. The key to that statement is native AVCHD. There is no practical reason to edit your footage in its native AVCHD format. When you import the footage into most editors, it will be transcoded from AVCHD into an “intermediate codec”. The intermediate codec requires substantially less horsepower which is what allows you to edit the footage in real time. The downside to this is space. AVCHD footage usually ends up being 2x – 4x its original size after being transcoded to the intermediate codec. To put some numbers on this, a 16GB card will hold about 2 hours of highest quality footage on the latest Canons (HF10/100). So if you go on a trip and shoot four hours of footage, you’re pushing 100 GB of space required to import and edit.

A Mac-specific note under this topic is that Apple’s two most cost-friendly video editors (iMovie ’08 and Final Cut Express 4) are limited to 1440 x 1080 when working with AVCHD. This used to not be a problem as all consumer AVCHD camcorders used sensors that had this resolution. The most recent generation of AVCHD camcorders, however, can record native 1920 x 1080. I am going to post at Apple to find out if the 1440 restriction is a limitation of these two applications or the current implementation of the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC).

AVCHD is Blu-Ray
http://www.elurauser.com/articles/avchd_to_bluray.jsp

As the article states “In reality, AVCHD is a watered down Blu-Ray standard with just one encoding algorithm, AVC.” What this means is that you can watch the footage you shot on your Blu-Ray player without hooking the camera up to your TV. Better yet, you can do so with the footage on regular DVD media. You do not need a Blu-Ray burner! Read the article for details.

An additional benefit to this fact is archiving. If you follow the proper steps as outlined in the article, you can burn the files on your camera to a regular DVD for archiving and still be able to stick that regular DVD in your Blu-Ray player and watch your footage in all its original glory. The downside to this approach is that you would have to shoot on 4 GB cards so that you stay within the 4 GB size limit of regular DVD’s. Depending on what and how you shoot, this may or may not be a concern. Don’t forget, however, just as you can delete garbage pictures off your digital still camera to free up space, you can delete crap footage off your AVCHD camcorder to free up space. This isn’t tape.