Possible HD Camcorder
 

Hello All, I am going to be leaving to go to India in a few months and want to document the entire experience. I currently own a Canon ZR100 and want to step up to HD. I have been doing some researching and am starting to settle on the HV20. I have been hearing mixed things and want to get the the definitive answer from all of you. And please take into account that this is my first adventure into HD. First off, this camera does shoot at 1080p and 24p correct? And at the highest resolution how much time can be recorded onto a standard 60 min MiniDV tape. I have heard record time range from 20 min to 60 min. Also what is the difference between HD and HDV and AVCHD? I know this is basic but I really am fairly ignorant to this stuff, so any help is greatly desired. And what is the difference between 24p and 24f playback mode? And in all honesty, what what do the different playback modes mean? Can't you just play the video back at the same speed you recorded at? One final question for now is, is Vegas 6.0d enough to properly edit full resolution footage from this camera or would Vegas 7 be required to do this more properly. Thanks again for your help guys.

Mitch

I can answer a couple of the questions.

The camera shoots at 1080i, not 1080p. I don't use the 24 settings, but I think they call it 24f.

On a 60 minute tape, you get 60 minutes of HDV 1080i. This is because there is more compression for HDV than for DV.

HDV and AVCHD are different forms of HD--and there are a lot of others. For consumer or prosummer stuff, HDV is the tape format of HD and AVCHD is the hard drive or DVD format. Some say HDV is slightly better than AVCHD, but I have not personal experience with AVCHD. The HV20 is HDV (and DV).

Vegas 7 is a lot better at HDV (or AVCHD) handling than Vegas 6. Actually, Vegas 7 is excellent at HDV.

Buddy

Sorry but no, that's wrong. 24F is found only on the larger Canon 3-chip XL & XH series HD camcorders.

On the Canon website it says that one of the supported playback modes is 1080/24F and another is 1080/24P. What is the difference between the two. Also, what is the difference between 1080i and 1080p and are there any camcorders on this price level that record 1080p? Also, is there anything else I should know about the camcorder? Thanks

I believe what its referring to is that the HV20 can play back 24f that was recorded on its big brother the A1. Though it's able to play it back it does not shoot 24f. The HV20 shoots 24P. They are both similar and produce the same type of cadence in their video.

That's right -- it will play back 24F from the XL & XH camcorders. It shoots 24P. In the long run there's not much difference between them anyway. I just wanted to set the terminology straight.

The primary difference is in how they record. HDV is tape-based, while AVCHD is tapeless (using either a hard drive, an optical disc or a flash memory card). Both are HD formats. HD is a catch-all term which encompasses a variety of formats; HDV and AVCHD are but two of those various HD formats.

So the only difference between the two is the recording medium? What about the codec difference that I was reading about? And is there an appreciable difference between 1080i and 1080p? Also, can you change the resolution on this camcorder? Thanks guys you have been a tremendous help.

The *primary* difference between the two is the recording medium. What matters most with regard to their respective codecs is that HDV is readily supported now by a variety of editing solutions, while AVCHD is not yet all that well supported. All of these camcorders so far are 1080i, not 1080p (although they will record 24p within a 1080i stream). As far as changing the resolution, not sure which camcorder you're referring to, but any HDV camcorder will also record in standard definition DV, while AVCHD camcorders offer three or four compression settings which trade longer recording time for lower image quality.

They use different codes. HDV compresses using MPEG-2 format whereas AVCHD compresses using H.264 codec. I believe AVCHD files are smaller compared to HDV files.

P.

I also believe the Canon's AVCHD moel does not have an external mic input, while the HV-20 does.

So what is difference in MPEG-2 and the AVCHD codec? And How does 1080i compare to 1080p?

Moving from ZR100 to HV20 slightly big step
 

Hi Mitch! Looks like everyone has answered your technical questions. I'd like to fill you in on how much a difference it will be to use the HV20. I own a ZR200 which is close enough to your ZR100.

If you've not owned a progressive camcorder before, you may want to start with the 60i (plain HDV mode) mode TV-60 for your trip. The ZR series is a 60i only SD camcorder. 60i is more forgiving for fast motion. Unless you get practice with 24p might not want to use it yet. It takes some experimentation to learn how to hold and move slowly enough for HDV PF24 mode. 24P is a mode for those that like the film-like cadence and need very low light (3lux).

On Vegas 6, it is supposed to support HDV. One difference between 6 and 7 was the scene detection in the capture utility. If you download HDVSplit instead, it will recognize the HV20 and do scene detection. I'm not too clear on what else they updated or if there is any variance to the m2t format. To know for sure, download a raw m2t from the HV20 samples area and open it in Vegas 6. If you're considering AVCHD camcorder, 7.0e is the first version to support it.

Some nice news, the ZR100/200/300 use the same format of battery as the HV20. You can buy a bunch of BP-L214 or compatible and use them on both camcorders. And they use the same CA-850 charger!

Hope that helps you.

it does have an external mic input, check out this thread on the HG10, it has some sample footage as well. one question, are you going to be travelling with a laptop, if not then AVCHD might not be for you, as with tapes you just eject them, the AVCHD cams you've got to offload the footage to a computer when you fill them up. i also found that when ingesting the AVCHD footage it took just as long as if i had been capturing tape (due to the transcoding to make the footage editable) most of the other differences are illustrated in this thread.

AVCHD is a different codec (h264) and is compressed more than HDV (15MB vs 25MB for HDV) but there are also many threads on the difference

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=101059

My apologies, I was refering to the HR10 (no mic jack), but the HG10 does have a mic jack.

Dear Mitch,
no doubts, HV20 is one of the best, I'd say the best, camcorder in it's price range, it does amazing, yes , amazing video fro it's size and price, and the only regret you'll have - that you couldn't get it earlier.
And yes, Vegas supports HDV and 24p since version 4, I believe it was released in 2003,
Good luck, and please. don't forget to post some footage from your trip!