$750 for CanonHG10 - should I switch from HV20?
 

Hey.

I'm using an HV20, and there's two things I really don't like about it. A) Dropouts. B) The 24f in 60i reverse telecine process.

I was wondering if I should get an HG10 now that they're under $750 at Costco. I know HDV is better than even the best AVCHD files, but it's taking me weeks just to get my files in a format I can actually use... If the AVCHD files record directly to 24p and not in a "60i" wrapper, and if it ends the dropout problem, I'm all for it.

Anyone have any experience with this stuff?

EDIT: Nevermind. Just read [ on another web site ], the HG10 has a lot of trouble in 24p mode. That's a deal-killer.

...also you still have to remove the pulldown.......

Nonsense... total BS. We proved that ridiculous claim wrong months ago.

I've removed the specific reference that you named for two reasons: first, because they're wrong, and second, because I have a policy against trash-talking another site by name (I'll certainly criticize them harshly, because they so strongly deserve it, but since discretion is the better part of valor, I won't do it by name). Basically you have to watch out for advertising-driven sites that go out of their way to tell you what's wrong with a particular product, even if they have to make it up out of thin air.

They made a bogus claim that there's something wrong with 24p on the HG10 and gave no proof for it whatsoever. But we've looked at 24p on both the HV20 and HG10, and couldn't find any difference, plus -- and this is most important -- we've got the video clips to back it up.

See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=101059
and http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=106626
and http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=105293

Do yourself a huge favor and stop reading anything other than DV Info Net.

And please, don't drag bogus claims and other nonsense from ad-driven sites into DV Info Net.

Thanks in advance,

Chris, tell us how you really feel. :)

> "Do yourself a huge favor and stop reading anything other than DV Info Net."

Excellent advise for anything related to digital video!

Hey it doesn't kill ya to dig through the misinformation on the internet (if it did, the internet would be toast in a millisecond!), it just makes it that much more refreshing when you find the one place where people with real names and actual hands on experience tell it like it is with only a moderate(d) amount of "opinion-atin".

Just because you read it on the Internet doesn't make it "true"...

Believe it or not, I held back in that post. Really I did.

So, do you think it's worth the upgrade? I'm -really- tired of dropouts on my tape - I lost a couple of really important money quotes in my last outing!

But now I'm reading that there's an "automatic" dropout on the 2GB file limit! :(

See this thread. This fixes the 2(?) frames lost.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...=113083&page=2

24p mode is recorded in the 60i wrapper per the Canon user manual.

Okay, last question. Can I still use JES De-interlacer on my Macintosh in order to get that 24p out of the 60i wrapper?

Found it. Bit the bullet - I returned some tapes to Costco (and luckily enough, my friend wants to buy my HV20) so, all in all, I'm out $300 net. And I never have to deal with another bloody tape again. Yee Haw!

IMHO 24p on my HG10 is gorgeous. It is my first foray into HD. I didn't want to invest a huge amount of money.

However, I am a Final Cut Studio 2 user, so I can't speak to the ability of any other software to properly extract the 24p material. I wish it wasn't so awkward to do it (why can't FCP do the cadence thingie at the same time as the transcoding to ProRes?) but I'm happy.

Remember, this is a C O N S U M E R camcorder. Someday we'll have the Red Scarlet (or something similar) that will make Real Movies, but for now, I consider my $800 well spent.

Steve, it can! At least the way I do it, which is a two step process. I a) start by importing the footage as regular footage, 60i with 24P inside, then b) run it through my custom setting in compressor converting it to ProRes with an reverse telcine added to get 24P. Maybe you already do it this way, and would like it easier, but this seems to work well for me.

I'm importing the footage as 60i with 24p inside, but instead of running it through a custom setting in Compressor, I just use JES Deinterlacer and perform a reverse telecine to Photo-JPEG.

dropout is a fast forward rewind problem
 

I used HV20 to do some 35mm adapter footage and used a Tape Rewinder too. I saw lots of image freezing and sound disapearing in the footage. I used three tapes and the problem was in all. Some of this dropouts was recorded and I saw them everytime I rewind the tape and see again. Some image freezing disapear when I rewind the tape. So I concluded some dropouts was happening in playback.

Sudenly I had the Idea of rewind the tape in the camcorder and stop using the tape rewinder. The playback dropouts disapear. So I rewind the tape in camcorder and recorded again and rewind the tape in camcorder to do the playback. All the dropouts disapear. So I concluded the problem was the tape rewinder. So if you get dropouts (image freezing) do fast forward and rewind the tape in the camcorder and your new recording will be free of dopouts.

You know, I've got it here in front of me, package open and all connected and - to tell you the honest truth... I gotta say, I'm thinking about returning it.

Maybe I just got a bad batch of tapes on the HV20, and that switching back to the TDKs would fix the problem for me - no sweat. If that's the case, it's... tempting to go back to the HV20 full time.

There are some things that seriously annoy me about the HG10 that I couldn't figure out until I had it in my hands.

1) Loss of audio control. Seriously, Canon. What were you thinking?

2) Focus (i.AF/MF) is now stuck in a submenu instead of a one-button flip. When my footage is blurry I need it sharp -now-, thank you. Seriously, Canon. What were you thinking?

3) The AVCHD files won't work on my work PC without conversion; this is one thing I was hoping to avoid. (I thought they were stock AVC/H.264 files, I was wrong.) At work I'm still on Premiere Elements 3.0 - that's all I need, really. One of the advantages I was hoping for was being able to drop and drag the files from the hard drive to the computer, without requiring extra time for conversion.

4) No Standard Definition Recording. Sometimes, you just need SD, and I'd rather not waste the cycles on processing HD if I don't have to.

5) No capability to take photos onto the hard drive - only onto a Mini SD card. I HAVE a MiniSD card, but I wanted to leave it in my HV20...

The ultimate problem, of course, is that the HV20 produces dropouts. I'm going to try recording my TV for an hour in 60i HDV mode on the HV20 on the TDK tapes. If it doesn't drop a frame, I gotta say, as much as I'm looking forward to tapeless, this thing looks like more trouble than it's worth - and I got this thing becuase it was supposed to be LESS trouble to deal with than the HV20.

I don't understand. Everything you mention has been covered right here on this forum. Why didn't you do any research on this before you bought it? It's difficult to sympathize with you because we've gone over all of these points in detail right here on this site. Sorry, Brian, you can't say we didn't tell you so. It's mission-critical to read DV Info Net before making this kind of purchase decision. That way you would have known all of this -- all five points that you mention above -- before buying it and taking it home.

Well, Chris, yes, everything has been mentioned in this forum. In 12 different threads. In a seperate post in each of those threads.

All the information was there but it wasn't organized.

If you want, I could help you get together a Wikia Wiki or something, edited by the forum members so that all the information on each camera is available in one place.

-- Brian.

Of course you are right about that, and thanks for the offer Brian. As a one-man band it's pretty darn difficult to gather and correlate all this information. I'm not fond of wikis, but I have been kicking around an idea for a review page template (page or pages per camcorder). We can make it community-driven, like a wiki in that regard, but with the appearance of a formal review page, like we've done before here on DV Info Net:

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/camsupport/fibertec1.php

http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article06.php

http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/lighting/ikans400d.php

http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article82.php

http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article58.php

...along those lines. I understand how hard it is to glean everything from just the forum if you're not sitting on it every day like I am (but I have an excuse; this is my life).

It's all here, and good reading (far more accurate than the "insta-review" sites), but I know until you actually put hands on a piece of equipment for yourself it's hard to KNOW whether you can live with specific issues or not.

As much as the HV20 is loved and recommended, I had to put hands on it to find that I couldn't get past the build quality and the odd noises that transmitted to the mics - just too much creaking and clicking and squeaking for me... but it's still a fine camera for the money - for others, not me... and yes I read ALL the other people calling attention to the issues before I decided to try the cam anyway!


I ultimately went with the HC7... and now I've started to use the little Sony CX7 - and it has limitations, but the positive points outweigh the negatives... less control, the AVCHD related things, no VF, had to hack the LANC port (more control!!), but in the end it is such a well designed little camera I can live with it, it's SOOO easy to take everywhere, the quality to my eye is as good or better than the comparable HDV cam, and I'm really motivated to say goodby to tapes as much as is feasible - I can be editing before the first tape is dumped...



You may need to take a few days with the new cam and see whether there are workarounds that will meet your needs, or if one thing or another is a "deal breaker".

Ultimately every cam has it's good points and bad, and unless they completely prevent you from shooting great video, go shoot!

Short version... nothing is perfect. Shoot what ya got!

Don't get me wrong. Without Dvinfo.net, I simply would not be able to do the projects that I'm doing. I'm certainly at the "little knowledge is dangerous" stage, but we all have to start somewhere, and you and the rest of the guys here are helping me get off to a great start.

I just took delivery on an HG-10 today. I was trying to hold out until May for the HF-100, but I am starting a new podcast and needed it now.

I did a lot of research, but I missed the fact that the AVCHD files needed to be converted to another format to edit!?! Can someone point me toward that post?

I haven't tried it out on my Mac (and FCP 6.0 has support for the files natively) but on my PC, I realized that I didn't have native support for AVCHD through Quicktime)

Pinnacle Studio 11 does it natively.

Indeed, but if Pinnacle Studio isn't your preferred NLE...

Yes, that's what I'm referring to. I would prefer if the reverse telecine could happen at import time instead of as a second step. Among other things, the ProRes-encoded video files are enormous, and you temporarily need two of them whilst the Telecine operation is going.

LOL, then use Vegas or Edius. All of the popular NLE's are going to handle AVCHD footage pretty soon, I believe.

I got my camera (Hg10) last week but have been too busy to try out most of the features.
The clips I have taken so far were fantastic direct to the TV via component (I dont have the mini hdmi yet).

With regards to not being able to edit natively. I was able to do it with ulead studio 11. It needed the ulead free update to recognize the mts file. But I was able to edit it on a laptop that is 18 months old. ulead 11 allows conversion to many formats/codecs (but I dont see quicktime h.264).

I also made an avchd disc (as a test) and was able to play it in WinDVD 8. This can be a stopgap till I get a Blu-ray burner.

Didnt try the 24p mode but from my research beforehand I beleive Chris is right, and that article you refer to is BS

Pascal

Nor will I in the near future, as mine is a PAL camera. LOL

So this means I will have no pulldown problems, I presume? 25p into 50 is exactly 2.

I've recorded 30+hours on my HV10 over the last year or so, and while I haven't painstakingly played back every tape to check for dropouts, I have rarely/never noticed any dropouts on playback or capture... I'm using plain TDK DVM60 tapes. I never had any noticeable dropouts w/ TDK on my Optura Pi either, have over 60hrs on there... only time was when I switched to using a couple Sony and Panasonic tapes on a vacation trip, but also in extremely humid/wet conditions (Hawaii waterfall/volcano). I concur that WAS extremely frustrating.

YMMV of course, and sounds like you've had rough mileage w/ your tapes/HV20.... just trying to list other experience. Don't know if the HV20 is worse than HV10 in this regard.
Enjoy either one or both in the meantime!