Since everyone has started talking about controlling exposure on the HV20 again, I thought I'd post the link to the MUST READ article by Barry Green about doing this. I suggest you print it out, then read it over and over again, because it may not technically click in your mind too quickly...it didn't for me. It took several days before the light went off. LOL!!!

Controlling Exposure on the Canon HV20 by Barry Green
http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/

Hey...I was out shooting footage from inside my car and used a white napkin to point the camera at before locking the exposure. Now, I did have to move the napkin around to find just the right amount of light falling upon it that gave me a usable range of exposures (either side of 0) that didn't change the shutter speed. I found using my PSP to lock the exposure works best for indoors. So I improvised using the napkin outdoors in the car.

Hi Enea!

Hopefully a couple wiser voices add to what I say, they may even say it's not so special, don't bother, but if as Greg Tay says, it's "a really nifty software that tells you the gain so you can calibrate your cam," if you could translate what specifically speaks to that, that'd be great. Only if it isn't novel-length!

best,
elmer

@ Chris Barcellos, Andrew Plumb, Nathan Shane

I just got a call from Geico...

Oh, your the guy in the Geico commercials......:)

Screen grabs using Cinemode in my post in http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=93569

Here's how you can calibrate your cam using the HDV monitor program. I use my cellphone o2 XDA atom where I can adjust the lcd screen brightness in varying levels from 1-10. You can use your nokia to take pictures of a range of different shades of white/greyand use that. I then put the lcd in front of the lens and let the hv20 automatically adjust the exposure. I can see the values in the HDVmon. I readjust the lcd brightness until I get a reading that gives me 50 shutter(PAL version), f1.8 or 2.0 (wide open) and 0 gain, then I lock exposure. so 0db exposure is really 0 and anything above that is adding gain.

I did a test by shooting an entire party using this mode. It was an evening party and it seemed to help in minimizing low light artifacts. (Im a beginner on this camera) I tweaked color and light in post with pretty good results. I have Final Cut Studio 2 which has “Color” a new app that Apple acquired for color grading and finishing work. WOW !!! This app when owned by Silicon Color cost like $25,000. Used a lot in motion picture work and Apple is just giving it away in the new suite for $”0” The code in that app is far superior for this kind of work than anything else on the market unless your ready to spend what you ordinarily spend for a luxury car. :-)

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/color/

After reading the whole thread on that german website, I really don't know what to translate. The tool itself seem to be self-explanatory. Just a few things that might be important:

By the checkbox "pref. M.C. Decoder", you can force the tool to use the Mainconcept Mpeg2 decoder...when you've got that one installed on your system, that is. There seem to be some issues with other decoders not correctly displaying the whole picture (black lines on the bottom).

The latest version of the tool explicitly supports Canon HDV cams, stabilizer, white balance and manual exposure settings are not being displayed, though. The highest gain amplifications (+18 db) are correctly displayed now.

All the other posts concern Sony cams and DirectShow issues only. So be sure you've got a proper working DirectShow capable Mpeg2 decoder installed (PowerDVD 6 seems to install one) and the tool should work.

I hope I could shed some light on a few things. Ask away if you've got issues with the tool and I'll have another look on that site (and try to find a solution, of course).

Is that ok for you, Elmer? Ah, I just love the internet: people from all over the world exchanging information and knowledge. And it's always a good excercise for improving my english! ;)

I think this tool has some quirks in it in regards to reading shutter speeds. I purposely set my shutter speeds in different ranges and the software was unable to read the. it just displayed a "0". This happened most of the time I used it. Also it shows the 1/48 to be 1/60. The Iris and gain information showed up correctly every time however.

Thanks, Enea! That's fine by me.

It sounds like an app for PC and not Mac. True?

best,
elmer

True.

(are we redoing a particular and well known Budweiser commercial here, or what? ;)))