Canon HV20 Press Release, Overview and more

Bob Zimmerman · February 2nd, 2007, 11:29 AM

How many of your normal video camera consumers, shopping at Wal-mart Best Buy or someplace like that even know what 24p is? Probably not many. So why would Canon put 24P on a camera they are going to target the consumer?

If the footage looks like or better than the HV10 there is no reason this camera couldn't be used in some pro work.

Thomas Smet · February 2nd, 2007, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

Why is it that no one is complaining that this camcorder doesn’t have a focusing ring around the lens? Unless you’re transferring your footage to film, that feature is infinite times more important than 24p for small independent productions. Even the Optura have a focusing ring around the lens. Both Sony and Canon should stop replacing it with a tiny focusing dial that is very awkward to use.

I have never talked good about a JVC camcorder before but the only camcorder with excellent manual controls this year is the GZ-HD7. Besides, a replacement for the GL2 is way overdue.

While we are at it why don't we complain about it not having a 2/3" chip.

This is a consumer camera! It is made for little Johny's birthday party and not film makers. If you are a film maker who wants to use a consumer camera then great. I for one am mostly looking at this for vacations and not pro work. I will try it out as a B roll camera and studio bluescreen work but I would never ever depend on it as my main camera. 99% of the consumer market will never ever have a desire to use a foucs ring. They will slam it into auto focus and never turn it off ever again. Many of these features are a huge huge huge bonus on an already super great camera. About the only thing anybody ever complained about on the HV10 was the lack of mic input. Which again is one of those things a consumer would hardly ever use. We now have it with so many other bonus features.

If you want a focus ring use a 35mm DOF adapter on the front.

This just goes to show that no matter how good a new camera is there will always be somebody within a few days to complain about something.

Mike Teutsch · February 2nd, 2007, 12:14 PM

Ah men Thomas! If you can afford a Gates housing, you wouldn't be buying this camera.

Mike

Bob Zimmerman · February 2nd, 2007, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

While we are at it why don't we complain about it not having a 2/3" chip.

This is a consumer camera! It is made for little Johny's birthday party and not film makers. If you are a film maker who wants to use a consumer camera then great. I for one am mostly looking at this for vacations and not pro work. I will try it out as a B roll camera and studio bluescreen work but I would never ever depend on it as my main camera. 99% of the consumer market will never ever have a desire to use a foucs ring. They will slam it into auto focus and never turn it off ever again. Many of these features are a huge huge huge bonus on an already super great camera. About the only thing anybody ever complained about on the HV10 was the lack of mic input. Which again is one of those things a consumer would hardly ever use. We now have it with so many other bonus features.

If you want a focus ring use a 35mm DOF adapter on the front.

This just goes to show that no matter how good a new camera is there will always be somebody within a few days to complain about something.

I think we are looking at new markets, like the web, iTunes, podcast, cell phones. My brother is starting a company that will be using web portals etc.
We have MySpace, YouTube, on and on.

The idea of a filmaker only having a $5,000 or a $100,000 set up might be a thing of the past. I think saying a camera like the HV20 will only be for kids birthday parties is not true. I've seen people post that they took their kids birthday with a DVX100.

You probably won't see these on big movie sets, TV stations, etc, but they will be used. But when you see the footage that is coming out of these little camcorders there is no reason you won't be seeing it used for more than vacations and birthday parties.

Thomas Smet · February 2nd, 2007, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Zimmerman

I think we are looking at new markets, like the web, iTunes, podcast, cell phones. My brother is starting a company that will be using web portals etc.
We have MySpace, YouTube, on and on.

The idea of a filmaker only having a $5,000 or a $100,000 set up might be a thing of the past. I think saying a camera like the HV20 will only be for kids birthday parties is not true. I've seen people post that they took their kids birthday with a DVX100.

You probably won't see these on big movie sets, TV stations, etc, but they will be used. But when you see the footage that is coming out of these little camcorders there is no reason you won't be seeing it used for more than vacations and birthday parties.

I didn't say everybody would only use it for family video but a much larger percentage of them will. Of course there will be people that don't fit the exact markets but these people are a minority. If the aim is web video then why even go with HD? Those people could get a SD camera with a focus ring and the results would still look great. I'm not saying I wouldn't have liked a focus ring but I am not about to complain about it because I know it is a consumer camera and therefore will have limitations. Many young people wanting to experiment with creating movies would be happy with any camera and will not nit pick over features the way we do. Those same people using a HV20 will still create great video without the focus ring if they put the effort into it.

Besides it isn't as if the HV20 doesn't have manual focus. It just doesn't have a ring to do it. Those who want to create interesting video will not have a problem with this since most of them wouldn't have come from being used to using bigger cameras with focus rings. If they want to manual focus they will do so.

Paulo Teixeira · February 2nd, 2007, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Zimmerman

How many of your normal video camera consumers, shopping at Wal-mart Best Buy or someplace like that even know what 24p is? Probably not many. So why would Canon put 24P on a camera they are going to target the consumer?

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

I know it’s a consumer camcorder but it doesn’t make sense to put a 24p feature but not a focusing ring when that’s much more important or even a microphone input that attaches directly to a body.

Ken Ross · February 2nd, 2007, 01:49 PM

You can work around not having the focusing ring (focusing dial), but you can't work around not having 24p if you want it.

Brian Engleheart · February 2nd, 2007, 02:15 PM

Why isnt progressive scan important? Almost every display we watch video on nowadays is progressive. Deinterlacing is a PITA. Why do it if you dont have to.

The average consumer at Walmart is going to buy a DVD based camcorder because you dont have mess with those silly tapes. Someone that's intered in HD and willing to spend $1000 on a camcorder and uses an NLE certainly understands what 24P is - and likes it ;-)

Paulo Teixeira · February 2nd, 2007, 02:23 PM

I still would have loved to see 30p over 24p.

Holly Rognan · February 2nd, 2007, 02:32 PM

If you bump your shutter to 1/30th, you will have a fake 30p with a resolution hit of course. But if it is a progressive chip you actually should retain the full rez, so there shouldn't be worries about no 30p.

Cliff Etzel · February 2nd, 2007, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Teutsch

Ah men Thomas! If you can afford a Gates housing, you wouldn't be buying this camera.

Mike

Not so sure on that one Mike - The Gates HC1/A1U housing is considered by many serious u/w shooters to be one of the best housings Gates ever produced. For many, it is considered functional artwork. And the HC-1 came in close to the price of the HV20...

Now the cameras are on a 9 month production cycle - I would hate to be in the u/w housing business these days...

Mike Teutsch · February 2nd, 2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Engleheart

Why isnt progressive scan important? Almost every display we watch video on nowadays is progressive. Deinterlacing is a PITA. Why do it if you dont have to.

Far from true, most HD displays in homes right now are 720p and or 1080i. 1080p is newer and far less prevelant. On top of that, most TV's in use are not even HD!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brian Engleheart

The average consumer at Walmart is going to buy a DVD based camcorder because you dont have mess with those silly tapes. Someone that's intered in HD and willing to spend $1000 on a camcorder and uses an NLE certainly understands what 24P is - and likes it ;-)

I think this is wrong too. Most consumers at Walmart or anywhere else, don't know what 24p is. And, furthermore, 24p is not great for you little consumer home movies because of the problems with motion artifacts etc..

JMHO-----Mike

Mike Teutsch · February 2nd, 2007, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cliff Etzel

Not so sure on that one Mike - The Gates HC1/A1U housing is considered by many serious u/w shooters to be one of the best housings Gates ever produced. For many, it is considered functional artwork.

You are stating my case for me. I never ever said the Gates housings were not good, just the opposite.

Mike

Thanasis Grigoropoulos · February 2nd, 2007, 03:33 PM

This debate on the target market of the HV20 is quite interesting! IMHO this camera is set to serve a triple purpose:

1) It is targeted to the serious hoppyist who knows a couple of things more than the average consumer and cares about good plans and sound.
2) It is targeted as a deck and/or a 2nd/ behind the scenes camera on the cheap.
3) It is also targeted to the no-budget indie who has a lot of creativity but no money to materialise it into a "film!" He now has his tool at his price range to make his dream come true!

I think that the reason people do not see this 3rd market is because this is the first time a company actually caters COMPLETELY for this market! (previous attempts from other companies included GS400 and HC1). Until now, everybody *assumed* that if someone wishes to "make a film", well, he can certainly afford to buy a DVX/XL2/A1/V1 ! Or at least rent one! No?

Well... no!

There is plenty of people out there with NO BUDGET (no means no) and A BIG DREAM! Well, this is their time! Canon just gave them the tool. They even included this "cinema look" preset! Good luck to everybody! No more excuses...

Thanasis

P.S. Also, another parameter to the equation: Canon has started the last 6 months to introduce it's own DSLR CMOS sensors in it's camcorders. This is a big move! From what I understand (I am not a technical guy), it is significantly different to built a sensor for a camera than a camcorder. If I were Canon, I would definitely want this move to succeed (so that I stop buying my sensors from others) but also be very careful to built experience in this, before I throw my new technology into "pro" equipment. A failure in pro equipment will hurt Canon's name much more than a failure in a consumer camera! Remember that Canon has only one division which builts camcorders. No separation between "consumer" and "pro" divisions. IMHO, HV10 and HV20 are Canon's "test tubes". HV10 test their first camcorder CMOS sensor and its ability to capture interlaced. HV20 will test their HD progressive capturing technology from this sensor to the tape. No 24 full frames on tape, like 24f. Instead, 24 full frames in a 50/60i stream. A much better format for studios with decks ready to read this stream. It is a conservative, step-by-step approach, but it definitely makes sense! If HV20 comes through succesfully, I would expect a 3 CMOS implementation in an interlaced/progressive "pro" camera from Canon pretty soon!

P.S.2 This is what Sony did not do (testing on a consumer product their CMOS progressive capturing technology before going pro) with the results of V1E's progressive performance...

Thomas Smet · February 2nd, 2007, 04:47 PM

while many consumers may not know what 24p is they do know when using it that it kind of looks like film. SONY did the same thing on the HC1. They added the cinema effect mode that created a fake 24p look. Canon decided to do it the correct way and make it a real 24p. perhaps it was a nod to us artists knowning well that some very creative people were going to be using it. Perhaps they also did it because many people with XH1 cameras were buying these for B roll cameras/decks and figured it would be nice for those shooting 24F to have footage that could also B roll from the HV20. I mean this makes sense from that point of view. With the HV10 you only choice for B roll was to shoot 60i which didn't work very well for those shooting 24F. Now many 24F users will have an option for a locked down camera or camera used in a funky position that could be used to match footage from the higher end gear. I could actually see some high budget productions using these cameras for crashing since they are so cheap (assuming of course the tape wouldn't get too damaged).

Guys the focus ring is not that big of a deal to a large group of people that will be using this camera. Even the pros using the higher end Canon cameras may never manual focus the camera because it either acts as B roll or the IR auto focus works so well they wouldn't need to focus. You can still manual focus with the camera if you want to. I'm not sure how well it will work but it isn't as if you can't do it. Before knocking it you should try it or wait a few months so somebody can tell us how well the manual focus works.

Regardless of how some or many of us want to use this camera that does not change the fact that it is a scaled down consumer camera. While it could become the next DVX100 for indies that does not change the fact that it is also aimed at the consumer market. I'm not sure why there is so much concern over the focus ring. To me it sounds like the only people complaining about this are those who have used focus rings in the past and want a $1000.00 camera to match what they have used in the past. Stop living in a fantasy world and just enjoy what you can do with the camera.

While 30p would have been nice, I think it is better to have 24p then 30p. 30p isn't that big of a format while 24p is the highest quality production standard. The very first HDV camera only did 30p and a lot of people complained because they wanted 24p. 30p just isn't as usefull as 24p. If Canon had to make a choice I'm glad they did it this way. Now if we could have had both that would have been great but again I'm not about to complain about a $1000.00 camera that is already way way way too much camera for what we will be paying for.

February 2nd, 2007, 12:14 PM	#63
Mike Teutsch Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida Posts: 2,614	Ah men Thomas! If you can afford a Gates housing, you wouldn't be buying this camera. Mike __________________ Chapter one, line one. The BH.

February 2nd, 2007, 02:23 PM	#69
Paulo Teixeira Trustee Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 1,773	I still would have loved to see 30p over 24p. __________________ https://www.youtube.com/user/PhotoVi...esEtc/featured https://www.pond5.com/artist/paulot

February 2nd, 2007, 11:29 AM	#61
Bob Zimmerman Major Player Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Illinois Posts: 888	How many of your normal video camera consumers, shopping at Wal-mart Best Buy or someplace like that even know what 24p is? Probably not many. So why would Canon put 24P on a camera they are going to target the consumer? If the footage looks like or better than the HV10 there is no reason this camera couldn't be used in some pro work.

February 2nd, 2007, 01:49 PM	#67
Ken Ross Trustee Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: New York Posts: 1,945	You can work around not having the focusing ring (focusing dial), but you can't work around not having 24p if you want it.

February 2nd, 2007, 02:15 PM	#68
Brian Engleheart New Boot Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Hoboken, NJ Posts: 8	Why isnt progressive scan important? Almost every display we watch video on nowadays is progressive. Deinterlacing is a PITA. Why do it if you dont have to. The average consumer at Walmart is going to buy a DVD based camcorder because you dont have mess with those silly tapes. Someone that's intered in HD and willing to spend $1000 on a camcorder and uses an NLE certainly understands what 24P is - and likes it ;-)

February 2nd, 2007, 02:32 PM	#70
Holly Rognan Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Coalville America Posts: 244	If you bump your shutter to 1/30th, you will have a fake 30p with a resolution hit of course. But if it is a progressive chip you actually should retain the full rez, so there shouldn't be worries about no 30p.

February 2nd, 2007, 03:33 PM	#74
Thanasis Grigoropoulos Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Currently on the move! Posts: 33	This debate on the target market of the HV20 is quite interesting! IMHO this camera is set to serve a triple purpose: 1) It is targeted to the serious hoppyist who knows a couple of things more than the average consumer and cares about good plans and sound. 2) It is targeted as a deck and/or a 2nd/ behind the scenes camera on the cheap. 3) It is also targeted to the no-budget indie who has a lot of creativity but no money to materialise it into a "film!" He now has his tool at his price range to make his dream come true! I think that the reason people do not see this 3rd market is because this is the first time a company actually caters COMPLETELY for this market! (previous attempts from other companies included GS400 and HC1). Until now, everybody assumed that if someone wishes to "make a film", well, he can certainly afford to buy a DVX/XL2/A1/V1 ! Or at least rent one! No? Well... no! There is plenty of people out there with NO BUDGET (no means no) and A BIG DREAM! Well, this is their time! Canon just gave them the tool. They even included this "cinema look" preset! Good luck to everybody! No more excuses... Thanasis P.S. Also, another parameter to the equation: Canon has started the last 6 months to introduce it's own DSLR CMOS sensors in it's camcorders. This is a big move! From what I understand (I am not a technical guy), it is significantly different to built a sensor for a camera than a camcorder. If I were Canon, I would definitely want this move to succeed (so that I stop buying my sensors from others) but also be very careful to built experience in this, before I throw my new technology into "pro" equipment. A failure in pro equipment will hurt Canon's name much more than a failure in a consumer camera! Remember that Canon has only one division which builts camcorders. No separation between "consumer" and "pro" divisions. IMHO, HV10 and HV20 are Canon's "test tubes". HV10 test their first camcorder CMOS sensor and its ability to capture interlaced. HV20 will test their HD progressive capturing technology from this sensor to the tape. No 24 full frames on tape, like 24f. Instead, 24 full frames in a 50/60i stream. A much better format for studios with decks ready to read this stream. It is a conservative, step-by-step approach, but it definitely makes sense! If HV20 comes through succesfully, I would expect a 3 CMOS implementation in an interlaced/progressive "pro" camera from Canon pretty soon! P.S.2 This is what Sony did not do (testing on a consumer product their CMOS progressive capturing technology before going pro) with the results of V1E's progressive performance...

February 2nd, 2007, 04:47 PM	#75
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	while many consumers may not know what 24p is they do know when using it that it kind of looks like film. SONY did the same thing on the HC1. They added the cinema effect mode that created a fake 24p look. Canon decided to do it the correct way and make it a real 24p. perhaps it was a nod to us artists knowning well that some very creative people were going to be using it. Perhaps they also did it because many people with XH1 cameras were buying these for B roll cameras/decks and figured it would be nice for those shooting 24F to have footage that could also B roll from the HV20. I mean this makes sense from that point of view. With the HV10 you only choice for B roll was to shoot 60i which didn't work very well for those shooting 24F. Now many 24F users will have an option for a locked down camera or camera used in a funky position that could be used to match footage from the higher end gear. I could actually see some high budget productions using these cameras for crashing since they are so cheap (assuming of course the tape wouldn't get too damaged). Guys the focus ring is not that big of a deal to a large group of people that will be using this camera. Even the pros using the higher end Canon cameras may never manual focus the camera because it either acts as B roll or the IR auto focus works so well they wouldn't need to focus. You can still manual focus with the camera if you want to. I'm not sure how well it will work but it isn't as if you can't do it. Before knocking it you should try it or wait a few months so somebody can tell us how well the manual focus works. Regardless of how some or many of us want to use this camera that does not change the fact that it is a scaled down consumer camera. While it could become the next DVX100 for indies that does not change the fact that it is also aimed at the consumer market. I'm not sure why there is so much concern over the focus ring. To me it sounds like the only people complaining about this are those who have used focus rings in the past and want a $1000.00 camera to match what they have used in the past. Stop living in a fantasy world and just enjoy what you can do with the camera. While 30p would have been nice, I think it is better to have 24p then 30p. 30p isn't that big of a format while 24p is the highest quality production standard. The very first HDV camera only did 30p and a lot of people complained because they wanted 24p. 30p just isn't as usefull as 24p. If Canon had to make a choice I'm glad they did it this way. Now if we could have had both that would have been great but again I'm not about to complain about a $1000.00 camera that is already way way way too much camera for what we will be paying for.