The HV footage should be noticably better than your Hi8. if you're not wowed, there's somthing wrong somewhere. My HV-20 footage shot under good conditions is pretty close to what I see on the BBC Planet Earth HD-DVDs (I said under good contitions). You could ask around on the HV20.com forums, a very active place with lots of experienced HV users.

The HV-30 is a highly regarded consumer camcorder, but it isn't going to produce Discovery-HD quality. There are a lot of technical reasons for this. You're comparing the HV-30 with it single 1/3" chip to a film shoot or a professional HD camera with three 2/3" chips. Plus, just the lens alone on a camera used for a Discovery-HD shoot can cost as much as ten (or more) HV-30s. The HV-30 is a good value for under $1,000. Just lower your expectations a bit and enjoy it.

Are you recording something outside in good light, or just pointing the camera around inside the house in so-so light?

On small consumer cameras, good daylight can make a huge difference in the quality of the image.

Also, are you sure you're recording in HDV mode and not DV? And are you sure the camera is set for 1080i output and not set to downscale for regular TV? (I'm just making guesses here -- I don't have any personal experience with the HV20 or HV30)

Tim L

Thanks all. Definitely in HDV and either downloading 1080i or direct connecting HDMI output to my display.

Yes to dim indoor light too. Leaving work early to get some bright outdoor shots this afternoon, just hadn't got to that yet.

I picked up an HV20 a couple weeks ago and am very pleased with the image quality. Here's a link to some first posted footage on Vimeo - just some home video Easter stuff:

http://www.vimeo.com/820415

I've been using Cineform's HDLink to capture and remove pulldown, editing it in Vegas, adding sharpening and curves almost immediately (the cine settings does give a very neutral image with little in-camera sharpening) and while it certainly doesn't compare to Discovery Channel, it compares very favorably to the hours of HVX 200 footage I've been editing this year and last. Call me crazy, but I actually prefer the HV20 footage to that from the HVX 200.

Dim indoor light is what's doing it. The HV20 really pumps the gain in dim light, images are very noisy.

Of course, indoors the trick is to turn off the gain. Some great HV20 footage from Philip Bloom, btw:

http://www.vimeo.com/793488

I knew the noise was due to low light, but was trying to look around it to resolution/sharpness. I went to Vimeo earlier today and checked out a bunch of HV-20 footage there. Not sure how compressed it is on that site. Looked OK there.

In any case, I went outside this afternoon (kinda sunny day, it's spring in Oregon) and set up my hi8 and HV-30 on the same scene and tried a bunch of settings on the HV-30.

The image is excellent, blows away the hi8. I'm now a happy camera buyer.

thanks again everyone,
Rocky