Canon HG10 - High Def HDD camcorder shipping in October
 

We have had many camcorders now that record in 1920x1080 but don't have a sensor capable of true 1920x1080. Well until now that is...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/01/c...s-a-40gb-disk/

So we now have the awesome 1920x1080 sensor of the HV10 recording at 1920x1080 instead of 1440x1080.

However I am skeptical of AVCHD's encoding capabilities. The bit rate is 15Mbps. In theory 15Mbps of MPEG-4 AVC should be as good as 25Mbps of MPEG-2. We shall see...

Thanks -- see also http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...0801/canon.htm

40 GB, HDMI, Mic input with manual audio, a little lighter than the HR10 (Canon's disc-based AVCHD).

Canon's press release in Japanese: http://cweb.canon.jp/newsrelease/2007-08/pr-ivis.html

Canon HG10 (HDD)
 

Hi,

here the first photos:

http://www3.canon.de/pro/vid/dig/hg10/foto_hg10

and the press info:

http://www3.canon.de/images/pro/vid/dig/file/HG10.pdf


Matthias

english translate:
http://www.google.com/translate?u=ht...&hl=hu&ie=UTF8

Official Canon Japan site: http://cweb.canon.jp/ivis/hg10/index.html

Sadly, with a typo in a graphic: "Coral Applications" instead of "Corel Applications" on the main page.

Looks like they're bundling a Corel AVCHD capture / editing application with the camcorder.

Details on the Corel app and other included software at http://cweb.canon.jp/ivis/hg10/point...orel.html#main

And from the press release linked above: "In addition, the heat which is given out from LSI (that's the processor, or DSP) efficiently spreads by the fact that the separate heat way system is adopted for the substance design, the compact body was actualized."

Does it really capture in 1920x1080? It says so in Engadget, but can't see it being mentioned anywhere else.

Hope it doesn't do it at 1440x1080. AVCHD does support 1920x1080 capture by the way...

I think Engadget is getting that from the Watch Impress site... I'll see what I can find out from Canon USA.

Without LANC...

Without LANC, which Canon discontinued from its consumer line several years ago, so it should be expected that it does not have LANC -- which is too bad, because in my opinion it's an absolute necessity -- but they dropped it from their consumer cams quite awhile back and I don't think we'll ever see it again, unfortunately.

Soooo...
 

When can we expect to see this bad boy in the store ???

Shipping in October for $1299. I bet it'll be quite a bit more popular than the DVD-based Canon HR10.

I wonder if it will do 24p without cineform?

Well, like the HR10 and the HV series, it features a 24p Cine mode. But it's AVCHD, not HDV, so... CineForm?

It still records in 2:3 pulldown (60i). Bummer. Not as big a deal as you still have to transcode AVCHD.

It's very odd that Canon has all but eliminated the LANC jack when you consider that Canon markets a LANC controller. I would think the possibility of selling a $200 accessory (that's usually not found in stores but is available for purchase on Canon's' website) would keep the LANC jack on everything but the cheapest miniDV models.

Lack of a LANC port stopped me from buying an HV20.

All I need to know is if this is the AVCHD equivalent to the HV20. If so my prayers might have been answered!

Yes indeed -- this is the tapeless, hard drive version of the HV20 pretty much all the way around!

A lot of people who love extrim sport need a camcorder with LANC.
Mr.Canon, you did big mistake and loosing potential consumers! :)
Body of HG10 looks more solid and sexy than hv20.
Also why impossible to save ability record mpeg2 25Mbps with AVC.
I think this is not a big problem for new generation of codec.

So what is the deal with editing AVCHD ? Is the actual editing hard to do for computers or is the rendering ?

I have Vegas 7 , could I edit the AVCHD m2t's but render to HDV and print back to tape for archive on my HDR-HC3?

I was thinking of getting a HV-20 today then this thing comes out.

All flavors of the AVC format, including AVCHD, are strictly based on the H.264 specification which is strictly Mpeg4 territory by definition -- no Mpeg2 involved. That's not Canon's decision; it's the decision of the AVC consortium. And it's a little late for LANC -- as I said, Canon dropped it off their consumer camcorders a long time ago. In other words, the fact that it's no longer there should be no surprise; they haven't had it for years. And remember, bit rate has no bearing on quality; there's no need for 25mbps when a lower bit rate will do.

Chris, HG10 use same DIGIC DVII codec as HV20. It is programmable.
25Mbps of mpeg2 is better (for me) than 15Mbps h264. I wish only 25-50 AVC-intra:)
Look at this tread on doom9:http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=128498

HG10 also utilise same good cmos 1/2,7" imager as HV20.

Someone can correct me but I think there's two issues going on (that pros find problems with)...

1) There wasn't any support for advanced editing programs when AVCHD FIRST arrived, so there was some fuss... but now Vegas and other programs can edit it fine.

2) The compression type make the picture itself noisier and tougher to work with visually.

So number one was my concern until the support finally caught up (which its still young from my understanding) so that's not a huge issue. The number two reason though might be less of a problem now with higher resolution AVCHD and Canon's fantastic cameras mixed together.

Sure it's the same sensor and the same processor -- but the format is AVCHD and that's not going to change. If this camcorder was anything else (such as Mpeg2), then it wouldn't be AVCHD. Canon is a member of the AVCHD consortium, so it's unrealistic to expect anything other than an AVCHD camcorder.

Now what I think is interesting is to wonder if they will use AVC Intra on their professional camcorder line, for whatever it is that will eventually replace their XL and XH series of HDV camcorders. What tapeless format will they use... AVCHD or AVC Intra? Or perhaps something else?

But for now, the Canon HG10 is indeed AVCHD and that is set in stone and not very likely to change...

But if possible to hack DIGIC II in Canon's digital cameras, why not to do same for their camcorders to enable hidden features?;)
For encode to AVC-intra need less computation than to full IBP...GOP.
Only more bitrates up to 50Mbps. I think this DIGIC DV II will be used for future AVC-intra camcorders with different firmware.
Because now is the time when we can see unification of hardware with different firmwares.

Well the only problem with hacking to enable hidden features, is that those hidden features have to be in there in the first place. I have no doubt that someone will attempt to hack this camcorder, but I seriously doubt that they will find AVC Intra hiding inside.

The title of this thread has been changed from "Canon HG10 - Finally FULL 1920x1080" to "Canon HG10 - High Def HDD camcorder shipping in October." I have confirmed through Canon USA that the forthcoming HG10 does NOT record AVCHD at 1920 x 1080. It records, just like its sister camcorder the DVD-based HR10, at 1440 x 1080 anamorphic. This is contrary to what Engadget mistakenly reported when they said:

"Unlike their first AVCHD recorder (the HR10) the HG10 records 1,920 x 1,080 video to a 40GB disk drive instead of a DVD platter."

Actually the only difference in recording between the Canon HG10 and HR10 is that the HG10 records to an internal hard drive while the HR10 records to Mini DVD optical media... other than that, they both record AVCHD at 1440 x 1080 anamorphic, which of course is automatically scaled by any 1080i HDTV as 1920 x 1080, which may have been the source of the confusion.

It is in fact recording AVCHD at 1440 x 1080, just like HDV and HDCAM. Hope this helps,

Chris, forgive my ignorance, I'm trying to understand your post with my limited understanding of technical matters. Am I right in reading into it that because this is AVCHD and tapeless there is no pulldown and we won't need cineform to extract an unsquiggly 24p like we do with the HV20 in CS3? Thanks.

No -- it's still 24p in a 60i stream -- see http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....0&postcount=14

At least I'm pretty sure that's how it is, unless anybody knows for a fact that it's different?

Oh that is sad. It is so ironic that Panasonic and JVC have camcorders that record in full 1920x1080 with sensors that do half that resolution! Yet Canon has an amazingly high resolution sensor that can do 1920x1080, yet Canon chooses to reduce that to 1440x1080 when recording.

My dream for Consumer HD (or HD in general)...
3 1920x1080 global shutter CMOS sensors capturing in H.264 at 100Mbps in 1080p60.

Heck, I'll make that my new signature! If the dream is possible, one of the companies must make it so!

I doubt you would really notice the difference if it was recording 1920x1080. The difference between the two is so tiny that it would really be just a waste to force the encoder to waste bits to encode the extra pixels.

Would you rather have 1440x1080 with a clean compression or 1920x1080 with more compression artifacts and only a super tiny bit of extra detail?

Some other cameras may have a 1920x1080 record mode but it is almost useless because it doesn't really gain any extra detail. Don't get wrapped up in a numbers gain that have no meaning at all.

24p inside of 60i is more so to make sure any NLE out there will be able to work with the material. Most consumers are not interested in removing pulldown and working with raw 24p. While flags would have been nice it isn't needed for the target market of this camera who just want it to shoot nice video and do a straight edit and finish it up.

I wouldn't exactly get too excited over AVC-Intra either. There hasn't really been any images or footage seen from this format yet to show exactly how good it will look. It has all been pretty much merket hype at this point. Intra frame codecs tend to not have a whole lot of compression going on due to the fact that most of the compression comes from interframe. With Intra-frame you throw out most of the compression advantages to the format and left with something not that much different then mpeg2-Intra or mjpeg. Of course AVC-Intra may have a few compression tricks still in there but none of us really know until we start to see how well it looks.

"The direct optical path for a single-sensor design is relatively simpler, and also reduces optical distortion compared to the prism design used in 3-chip cameras. Difficulties with optical alignment in 3-chip camera designs practically limits the upper size of image sensors whereas the simpler optical path in single-sensor designs avoid these problems." http://www.cineform.com/technology/CineForm_RAW.htm

The difference is about 20%. Not tiny. If the difference was tiny then the wasted bits would also be...tiny.

Sorry, but Thomas is right -- and it's not as simple as that. Again, don't obsess over numbers -- you can't claim a "20% difference" as if it matters, because what's important is how it looks, and the average human being can detect any difference between 1440 anamorphic scaled to 1920 square, versus an original 1920 square -- as Thomas correctly points out, you really don't gain anything. Remember the current defacto standard format for HD broadcast masters is HDCAM, which is also 1440 anamorphic. And nobody in their right mind complains about it.

See Douglas Spotted Eagle's excellent input in this thread. The standard says nothing about the quality of the image -- and there has been no such thing as a full-raster 1920 broadcast camera in wide use today -- full 1920 is for display; it's not needed for acquisition. And remember also that these are consumer camcorders. 1440 anamorphic is more than sufficient at the acquisition level for 1920 playback. Don't get hung up on the numbers -- there are other considerations that are far more important, and that's a fundamental concept to grasp.

"Full 1920" is a marketing term, nothing else.

In this case the new Panasonic HDC-SD7 with real full 1920 at 13Mbps
can be not better than Canon HG10 at 15Mbps 1440x1080 ? Less bits per pixel...

No way to know for certain until you have both camcorders in hand, side by side, to compare the images that they're actually producing. And since that's not possible at this moment, there's no way to know for sure. It's utterly pointless to compare the numbers -- that's the whole point here.

I wouldn't exactly say a loss of 518,400* pixels is a "super tiny bit of extra detail", given that DV video is only 345,600 pixels. You'd be correct about compression artifacts given that you're also assuming a fixed compression data rate for 1440 vs full 1920. Canon could up the data rate to 18Mbps to account for full 1920x1080 compression, since it is in the AVCHD specs.

Do you think photographers could see a difference if their dSLRs took pictures at 1440x1080 but upscaled to 1920x1080 for print? You might find them in a mini revolt.

Let's separate what the camcorder is able to resolve from what is possible from the recording format.

Well, I find this statement puzzling. Most are clamoring for full 24P frames written to data, instead of having it interlaced in a 60i stream so we don't have to remove pulldown. Wouldn't that make it easier to edit?

I agree, most consumers are not interested in removing pulldown, considering it wouldn't have pulldown added to begin with. :-S

Consumers deal with 24P all the time. Watch what they do when they rent those Hollywood DVDs from Blockbuster. Those DVDs are raw 24P.

*480 x 1080 = 518,400

I convert almost all my HV20 video to 960x540 for three main reasons, it gives me square pixels which is good for the 3D stuff I'm doing, it saves a ton of disk space and CPU time and I'm hard pressed to tell the difference between 960x540 blown up to 1920x1080 and the original 1440x1080 blown up to 1920x1080! This is sitting in a room watching it on a screen mind you... not up close to the computer monitor examining pixels. Of course I'll never project my stuff on a cinema size screen either, though I do use my brother's HD projector and the footage looks fantastic on a large screen.

So, I'll agree with the popular sentiment that there are more important things than 1920 vs 1440. The quality of the encoder and actually recording a 24p file to the hard drive as opposed to a 24p-in-60i file are much more important IMHO.

Heck, I'd prefer an HV20 that downsamples and records 960x540 at 24p using the same bandwidth as the 1440 stream if I had my way!

Stop thinking of numbers and actually look at video where everything is equal and one is at 1440x1080 and the other is at 1920x1080.

Video cameras are a little bit different then still cameras. Are you saying a 1920x1080 image from the HV20 would look as good as a still at 1920x1080 pixels from a DSLR? How about a digital still from a DSLR at 640x480 pixels compared to DV? There are so many factors that go into image quality that pixel resolution is only a tiny fraction of the overall picture.

Most photographers I know only care about how the image looks and don't sit around all day wondering what a group of pixels will look like. If there was a DSLR that did anamorphic pixels and it looked great nobody would care what it was doing on the inside.

The point myself and Chris are trying to make is to stop thinking of numbers. We are dealing with images and art here and not math and equations.

Take a digital photo you have around and scale or crop it to 1920x1080. Then scale that image down to 1440x1080 and then back up again to 1920x1080 and compare the two. You will see just how little the difference is. Try it instead of thinking of numbers.

Listen to Wes above me. He knows what he is talking about since he is a fellow artist.

I agree with Wes although I do tend to start to notice a little loss of detail when going down to 960x540 depending on the camera. I tested this out a long time ago with footage from the SONY Z1. I converted it to 960x540 and it didn't have hardly any loss of detail at all.

Like Wes I also down convert my HDV material although I down convert to 1280x720p 24p. It saves me a lot of space like it does for Wes but then it is already at a HD standard that is easy to work with.