Canon HF10 vs Sanyo VPC-FH1

[Charles Alexander]

Hello

I own a Sony TRV27 and want to upgrade to a tapeless HD camcorder. I've been looking at the Canon HF10 and just recently into the Sanyo VPC-HF1 esp at that pricepoint. The Sanyo is awfully tempting. I'm a Canon fan though.

I'll be using the cam mostly for guerilla style music videos and for shooting bands/singer songwriters in low light situations in clubs and such. Also some talking head style interviews for my web site and Youtube. And maybe once in a while my own produced low budget music videos. ;-)

The things that are "issues" for me are the editing requirements. I have a MacBook Pro with 2.5Ghz CoreDuo and my wife is about to pick up a 2.8 Ghz MBP. I know the Sanyo files are MP4.

Any thoughts on which formats are easier to edit? Do I need Neoscene's Cineform?

I also can get Adobe Premiere Pro's Production product for a great deal since I'm at an academic inst. Up to now I've been in FCE. But Adobe After Effects in hard to pass up.

Just as a footnote, I loved the footage of the HV20 and if it wasn't for the fact that it was tape, I'd be all over it.

Looked at Sanyo footage on Vimeo. Not much to not like. Though HF10 seems slightly crisper. I like my color saturated ;-) Any idea if the Sanyo ghosts much?

Anyone here shoot music video type stuff in low light with the HF10? Any thoughts there?

Any recommendations as to which cam to go with and why? I'd like to stay under $500-600.

Thanks

Charles

[Mayer Chalom]

The fh1 may be cheap and have full manual control but the hf10 has much better quality for me. The fh1 has horrible rolling shutter, a 2.2 aperture vs the 1.8 of the canon, and the canon has a mic input where as the fh1 does not. The hv20/30/40 for 500-900 bucks (depending on which model) camera are even better because they have have a real manual focus ring and their bit rate of 25mbps vs the hf10's 17mpbs make it alot sharper. Also the hv20/30/40 have the shallowest depth of field, zebras, and color peaking whereas the hf10 does not. I used to have an hv30 but returned it for the hfs100 because the hfs100 does 24mpbs tapeless, has manual gain control where as none of the canon or any of the other consumer hd cameras have in that price range, plus it has a much larger focus wheel than the hv20/30/40. So the hfs100 is the best but is about 900-1000 bucks. BTW what are you editing on and the canon consumer hd cams are a little bit overkill for youtube no offense. I have a mac pro with final cut pro and you do not need any cineform product if you are editing on the mac whether it be imovie/final cut express/final cut pro. In fce and imovie you lose quality with codec and in final cut pro the codec is losless. Remeber always to get an external mic for these cameras, the internals suck (which automatically rules out the fh1 because there is no mic input or audio control).

[Charles Alexander]

Thanks Mayer. It is a hard decision. I'd go with the HV20, but it's not tapeless and I know for me, if I had to wait for tape to transfer, I'd not use the footage.

I'm on a Mac MBP 2.5 Ghz CoreDuo machine. Editing mostly with FCE - though I think I may go to Adobe Premiere.

Thanks for your input.

Charles

[Mayer Chalom]

The only tapeless can I could really recommend is the hfs100/10 camera and some of the sony and panasonic 900+ ones. Unless you have an 8 core mac pro (like me YAY) On a mbp 2.5 with fce importing avchd will not only loose some quality (fce uses apple intermediate codec = lossy fcp uses apple pro res = losless and premier pro and vegas edit avchd natively) and import times will be above realtime in fce on the computer. If you get premier pro and get a card reader you can get much much faster import times but your rendering times will be horrendous. Not only is the hv20 a better camera than the fh1 but it has a better codec. the hfs100/10 has slightly more control (better focus wheel, manual gain) is tapeless, and its codec is matchable if not better than hdv. With hdv you get realtime capturing on your machine.

[Dave Haynie]

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

I own a Sony TRV27 and want to upgrade to a tapeless HD camcorder. I've been looking at the Canon HF10 and just recently into the Sanyo VPC-HF1 esp at that pricepoint. The Sanyo is awfully tempting. I'm a Canon fan though.

I just bought an FH1.. and it's damn fine. This was intended to replace my "C" camera, a Hitachi BD70A... a Blu-Ray camcorder. Blu-Ray wasn't bad... at an hour per disc, this fixed the major flaw in DVD-based recording. But the AVCHD CODEC did suffer from being from an earlier stage of evolution (by most accounts, AVCHD only hit its stride this year in comparison to HDV, even given the higher resolution of most AVCHD camcorders). And, despite the fairly large single CMOS sensor, the BD70A had pretty evil low-light performance, at least compared to my Sony HVR-A1 and Canon HV10 (same sensor as in the more well known HV20 and HV30).

So, the Sanyo FH1... like the BD70A and the Sony, it has only digital image stabilization. I prefer a tripod, and use them for most things, so it's not a huge issue. As well, you won't get into vibrational situations (back of a pickup truck offroad, for example) that freak out the clever mechanical systems in an optical stabilizer. But for regular shooting without support, optical definitely wins.

I also didn't worry too much about the lack of audio jack (though, as it's in the similar HD2000, it's kind of a shame they left it, and the hot-shoe, off this one.. but then again, I only paid $420). If I'm doing a multi-camera shoot, I have audio on the Sony, on a Tascam DR-1, and possibly other field recorders. For "pocket camera" video, there's no room for the external mic anyway.. and this thing is freakishly small... it's like one lens tube with a screen attached.

But to the good stuff.. the video output of this totally rocks. I think it compares very well to the Sony and the Canon, even in low light. In fact, it might be slightly better... true, both my others have f1.8 lenses, this one is f2.0 at 5.95mm (full wide), not the f2.2 someone else quoted. The 1/2.5" sensor is one of the most sensitive in any consumer model... Sanyo does their own CMOS sensors. At 59.5mm, it's at f2.8... this isn't all that far off from the HF-S10, which is f1.8 at 6.5mm, f3.0 at 64mm.

Now, I'd bet the HF-S10 is a bit better quality... it would be disturbing if it weren't, since you can buy like three of the Sanyos for the price of that hot new Canon. On the other hand, you can't do 1080/60p on the Canon, or any of those high-speed modes (not that they're necessarily all that useful... but it's another tool in the box). The Sanyo won't do 24p, which is a nice option for non-action or film-look destined for BD or DVD (also helps with the low-light issues).

As for the older HF10, I wouldn't be surprised if the Sanyo had the edge. The HF10 is using a smaller CMOS sensor (1/3.2") than the HF-S10 or HV20, not mention the FH1.

There's a comparison here of the nearly identical (other the mic input and form-factor) Sanyo VPC-HD2000 versus the HF20:
Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 Camcorder Review - Sanyo

Consider that this year, Canon basically split.. the HF-S10 was an upgrade to the HF10, the HF20 was something of a downgrade... its low-light performance dropped a little bit. The next page in that review goes against the HD-S10/100.. they still give the HD2000 an edge in low-light performance over the HF-S100.

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

I'll be using the cam mostly for guerilla style music videos and for shooting bands/singer songwriters in low light situations in clubs and such. Also some talking head style interviews for my web site and Youtube. And maybe once in a while my own produced low budget music videos. ;-)

The Sanyo is certainly on the short list of consumer camcorders doing low-light well. So is the Canon HF-S10, and the Panasonic TM300. What's amazing about the Sanyo is what you get for the price. If price were no object, I'd go for the Panasonic.. I like viewfinders and lens rings.

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

The things that are "issues" for me are the editing requirements. I have a MacBook Pro with 2.5Ghz CoreDuo and my wife is about to pick up a 2.8 Ghz MBP. I know the Sanyo files are MP4.

Any thoughts on which formats are easier to edit? Do I need Neoscene's Cineform?

AVCHD MP4 is the worst format for editing, sure. I have edited AVCHD files on my 2.4GHz Core2 HP laptop, and it works, but there's waiting. For any serious editing, I would transcode to CineForm or high-bitrate MPEG-2. On a Mac, you probably have access to Apple's intermediate CODEC, too, for free.. that's probably good enough.

Of particular issue are 1080/60p files. Without GPU acceleration, it takes a multithreaded player 65-75% of my desktop system (Q9550) to play back Sanyo 1080/60p on my 1200p monitors. My video editor (Sony Vegas) is not doing multithreaded or GPU accelerated rendering on edits year (for renders, it's all four cores plus network rendering if I want to use other machines here). So if your Mac tools do better in this regard, you may be ok. If not.. expect to transcode or do some waiting.

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

I also can get Adobe Premiere Pro's Production product for a great deal since I'm at an academic inst. Up to now I've been in FCE. But Adobe After Effects in hard to pass up.

After Effects certainly has much to offer.. though you might consider Boris Red, which can plug-in to FCP (don't know about FCE), just as it can with Vegas.

Premiere... I started digital video in an ancient version of Premiere. It had clearly been written for a day that had come and gone.. very primitive ideas about what a PC can do with video, second or third class audio, strict limits on video tracks, and many stupid ideas on how to do things. There is evidence this was fixed in Premiere Pro (and the "Pro" designation was needed to give them license to change their evil ideas, but how much change, I dunno). I would not jump into a whole Premiere Pro suite just to get AE.

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

Just as a footnote, I loved the footage of the HV20 and if it wasn't for the fact that it was tape, I'd be all over it.

The HV20 looks just like my HV10, other than the lack of a 24p mode on the HV10. It's very good. The HV20 was Canon's top-of-the-line model when it came out, for consumer video. The thing today is that the FH1 can certainly rival that quality, and do stuff the Canon's can't... as the Canon can to it (including the HV30 and HV40, to be current). I wasn't leaving tape to get into flash, but Blu-Ray ;-)... so I didn't actually need the Sanyo to be better than the Canon or Sony, just the Hitachi, and then, only in low light. The fact it does better sports video than my others is just gravy.

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

Looked at Sanyo footage on Vimeo. Not much to not like. Though HF10 seems slightly crisper. I like my color saturated ;-) Any idea if the Sanyo ghosts much?

The HV10 is more saturated than the Sony... a little oversaturation is typical on consumer cameras. The FH1 is in the same ballpark as the HV10.. maybe a bit more, but it's pretty close. Ghost images... not sure what you're looking for. There's a bit of flare in the lens, sure... you're going to have that on these complex zoom designs (12 elements). A lens hood would help.. I always have that on the Sony.

Originally Posted by Charles Alexander

Any recommendations as to which cam to go with and why? I'd like to stay under $500-600.

You can find refurbished HF100s for under $500 (HF10 without the internal flash), but new, these typically run higher.. the list price is about a grand. You'll have to shop around, the HF10/11/100 were replaced by the HF-S10 and HF20 seried. The HF-S100 runs $1000 new, the HF200 about $600, new, from a reputable dealer.

I got my FH1 for $423, including postage. Again, I'm not its feature rich enough for me to use it as an "A" camera. But it seems be the big value right now, if you can live with the limitations.

My least favorite issue... when it gets to 4GB in a video file, it "hiccups"... it writes out the old file, starts a new one, and for a bit there's no recording in the gap. Now, sure, you have to stop to change tape or disc with other camcorders, but it does present an issue (particularly because you hit the 4GB point at 20min when shooting 1080/60p).