Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 2/5/2008, 2:03 PM
For what purpose?

There is always the Canon HV-20 for $659.20 with free shipping on Amazon, sometimes even less elsewhere. Shoots great video, if you break it when using it as crash cam you still have enough money left to replace it :O).

Or you can use the rest of your budget for lots of actually useful accessories, such as lighting that provides a professional look to your videos, or good sticks, or something Steadicam-like, or a DOF adapter...
Cheno wrote on 2/5/2008, 2:36 PM
HV20 for sure -

HV30 is just around the corner as well. And it's listing for $999 at B&H.

I think Canon nailed a home run with their HDV cams - this HV20 is nothing to laugh at. I've used it as a B and C cam for shoots and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference in most cases between the XLH1 and the XHA1. Manual controls, like on most little cams are a bit awkward but for the price and the quality. I don't think it can be beat for the price point.

cheno
jabloomf1230 wrote on 2/5/2008, 3:26 PM
The HV20 is a real value and a quality HD camera. If you check out the website, www.hv20.com, you will get a good overview of the camcorder's capabilities. Also, the HV20 community has come up with a number of tweaks and workarounds to enhance the limited manual controls provided by the camera "officially".

At this point, the HV30 has been announced and here's one many articles that explain the differences between the HV20 and HV30:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV30-Camcorder-Review-34401.htm

The improvements don't seem to be worth the additional $300+ street price difference.
stopint wrote on 2/5/2008, 10:16 PM
...you could buy two for 1400...grab a used sony hc1-hc3...or go the canon route...
Cliff Etzel wrote on 2/6/2008, 8:56 AM
Due to the nature of the work I shoot (Both above and underwater) I went with a couple of SONY HC7's which I got at a very reasonable $899 each through Amazon.com during the holidays.

One of my clients produces aluminum underwater housings and they standardized on SONY cameras due to their LANC connection. So with that specification, my only option was to go with SONY and I haven't been sorry so far. I have heard some great things about the Canon, then again there are those having ingest problems with Vegas and the unique shooting modes of the HV20. The HC7's have worked right out of the box for me.

I tend to be be conservative in my equipment choices (I just made the switch to HDV in December after having shot with TRV950's), so my response might seem guarded.

Now that SONY has the soon to be released HC9 (basically a black HC7), I'm sure the price has come down even more on the HC7's.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt
R0cky wrote on 2/6/2008, 12:50 PM
Would someone please summarize the issues and solutions with Canon files in Vegas? I too am in the market for a camera and don't want to be plagued by avoidable bugs.

Canon HDV or AVCHD is the issue? Or both?

thanks all,
Rocky
Guy Bruner wrote on 2/6/2008, 1:09 PM
IMO, the only significant issue with the HV20 and Vegas is the ability to do IVTC on the 24p footage. Canon chose to record the 24p with 3:2 pulldown with no flags to tell software that the video is telecined. Vegas has no cadence detection capability to reconstruct the video and remove the pulldown. If shooting 24p and being able to edit with the video in progressive format is important to you, you will have to either purchase other software, like Cineform NEO, or cobble together some hacked freeware (there is at least one VirtualDub hack I'm aware of) to do the pulldown removal. If you are doing this commercially, spring for the Cineform software. It works effortlessly and also gives you a near-lossless codec solution in lieu of editing HDV.

BTW, you can buy an HV20 for less than $650 from several reliable advertisers at Camcorder User Network.

Guy
Jonathan Neal wrote on 2/6/2008, 2:59 PM
Yikes, I was about ready to go for the Canon HC20, but now that I hear I can't shoot 24p HD without using another piece of software, I guess I'm left undecided again. What a major disappointment.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 2/6/2008, 3:40 PM
TMPGenc XPress will also remove the pulldown:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=1417
skiltrip wrote on 2/7/2008, 9:10 AM
You can get Cineform NeoHDV for $199 if you are an HV20 owner. See www.hv20.com for details on that.

When you think about the price of the HV20, and the B&H upgrade deal for Vegas Pro 8, and getting Cineform only totals a hair over $1k.

For this you get a pro editing environment that can work with 24fps footage, and an HDV camera that can give you true 24p or regular HDV 60i footage.

If you just bite the bullet and buy Cineform NeoHDV and find an HV20 for between 600 and 650 (I got mine for $627 after shipping), it'll cost you just over $800. You're not really going to find a camera that does what the HV20 can do for that cheap. Just think of it as a package deal.

If the HV20 WAS able to export this 24p without help from another program like Neo, you can be sure the current price would be higher than it is. You'd probably be paying the difference anyway.

just my two pennies.