Excellent article
 

Is it my monitor or do the HVX clips look more colorful?

I wonder if the A1 "HD Auto Focus" feature is any better than their focus was on the XL cams...


:p

The HVX clips are more saturated/colorful; Barrys' comments say the same thing.

They seem very colorful indeed. The A1 seems very misrepresented.

The A1 is not "misrepresented" in any way. The settings were described clearly. It is exact, uncompressed, unmodified, untouched footage at middle settings, on both. The HVX has a much richer palette than the XHA1, and that's really the only signficant image difference between them; other factors seem very comparable.

I would expect that from a forum that is geared towards a given manufacturer. That and being unfamiliar with the product being compared.

Here's an incorrect statement I found almost immediately..

The XL2 was the only XL series to have the 'clicky iris switch'. The XL1/s had a wheel. The XL2 had the toggle switch and people complained loudly so Canon brought back the wheel for the XLH1, contradictory to Barry's statement.

-gb-

Yes, richer by default, not by capability.

it's funny, i have the HVX and was lucky enough to see a "behinds the scenes" demo of the A1 days before it was released and i loved it, from that meeting i even recommended it to one of my good friends for her specific needs the moment i saw it, i was that impressed... and she loves it.

what i find amusing is that when Barry is fairly objective, people will still get all bent out of shape. he states in the article many times that both cameras produce amazing stuff. this is a 24 on 24 comparison too, the 60i of the A1 is prolly kickin' something awesome.

for me personally i know my needs and wants from a camera lead me towards the HVX, yet that doesn't mean (as with Barry and many other people...) we can't see each tool for their intended purposes. i'm not sure why it should surprise people that the HVX will provide richer colors or dispute it. seems rather odd.

either way, great article, learned a lot, something new everyday i guess; for instance i never knew about that servo problem where only one will work at any one time ... thanks Barry! good read.

Actually that's not the case, Holly. Canon's chips have historically been flatter and less saturated than both Panasonic or Sony and in fact are similar to JVC's color response. Many shooters that I've worked with actually consider the H1 and HD100/150 to be a close match with respect to their color output and often mix sequences from those 2 cameras because of their similar color response. Those same shooters however found it difficult to match the H1 with the Sony Z1 since Sony's chips produce a much more saturated output.

Canon's claim to fame in both digi-video and DSLR's isn't color it's low noise and sharpness. This same less-saturated/good sharpness characteristic continues with this camera and is clearly displayed in all the samples Barry supplied.

So in fact, the HVX does have high color saturation both in default settings and when chroma is pulled up manually - as mentioned in Barry's article when chroma is bumped to maximum the Canon becomes richer whereas the HVX's saturation goes beyond what the Canon is capable of.

That doesn't make the HVX better than the Canon, it makes them distinctly different.

We had a massive discussion over there as well, so it's probably not fair to Chris to rehash it all over here.

Let me just say that I'm still puzzled why people think a $3995 product should do everything a $5995 product does? It doesn't. That's okay. It's a lot less expensive. That's the point.

What the XHA1 does for $3600 "street" is unparalleled, and it's far and away the best HDV camera on the market. It just doesn't do half the things the HVX does (which is why the HVX costs more).

And yes, richer by default, and richer by capability. If you look at the photos of the courthouse and the trees, I show both cams on "neutral" settings, and also on "maxxed out" settings.

Platform wars are boring
 

Here are a few articles that may help balance out (or not) all the opinions flying around. Remember they are *opinions*. Bottom line is, if you're happy with your camera then...well...you're happy with your camera! The links are in no particular order and the XL-H1 articles are there because the picture performance is virtually identical to that of the A1's.

http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_it...leId=187202354

http://www.dv.com/reviews/reviews_it...leId=184429497

http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_it...leId=187202363

http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_it...leId=193001363

http://www.adamwilt.com/HD/4cams-part1.html

http://www.adamwilt.com/HD/4cams-part2.html

Juan, there won't be any platform wars here at DVINFO. Any threads that go in that direction will magically disappear in short order.

-gb-

True. And that's a good thing.

I certainly don't expect the same level of performance from a camera that's $2K less. That's the problem though with putting up a review title of X vs Y. Anytime you stick 'vs' in a comparison, people expect a 'winner' between the two.

I'm more concerned from a journalistic standpoint of your known affiliation to Panasonic. It makes it appear that there is a conflict of interest in your reporting. I think it would have been perceived better if you had simply written a review of the XHA1 by itself and left the HVX totally out of the picture.

JMHO,

-gb-

I agree with Barry's decision to do a head-to-head using the HVX. It is to date, the only truly different handheld HD camera on the market, since literally every other offering is HDV-based.

From the weath of "vs" comparos both on the web and in magazines it's easily apparent that regardless of form factor (removable lenses or fixed), all the HDV cameras have very similar output characterisitcs and all shooting the 4:2:0 codec. This is a significant and noteworthy distinction and could easily be the sole reason any reviewer would choose to bring the HVX in the mix to demonstrate this color difference not only between codecs but chipsets.

You could say, that by default the HVX - within the handheld HD market - has become the color standard by which other HD cams will be measured. That is until someone creates a completely different codec other than HDV for the sub-$10k market. But as I say right now there are only 2 choices: HDV or DV100, and only Panny makes a DV100 camera; Sony, JVC and Canon are all producing versions of HDV.

You could also argue that the comparo should have been between a Sony and a Canon since Sony's color is more HVX-like however, this is an HVX forum and as such I'm sure the basis for the comparo was for HVX owners or wannabe's to see the color difference between a new HDV camera and the HVX.

So, with respect to color only, there is a clear winner: the HVX, no contest. And as far as Barry's journalistic integrity I've never considered anything he has shared to be blindly brand-loyal; he openly shares both strengths and weaknesses of anything he reviews - something I'm mindful of myself.

I want to make clear that I am not attacking Barry and that I have utmost respect for his knowledge. I was only wanting to point out to Barry that many readers might come away with the perception of bias, given the venue where the review appeared.

I brought up the 'vs' thing Robert, cause after the Texas HD Shootout, we ran into the same thing. People expected some type of last camera standing after the smoke cleared. But we found out there was no clear winner amongst the sub $10K HD cameras. They all had strengths and weaknesses. In retrospect, we should have called it a Round Up instead of a Shootout cause we really ended up with each camera having unique differences that will appeal to a certain end-user and their needs.

I agree about the vivid color of Panasonic. That's one trait that I love about my little 953. The color on that thing is gorgeous!

regards,

-gb-

These out of the box shoot-outs are always so objective anyway.. I mean color is always subject to preference and obviously could be tweaked in camera or post if desired.

I'm sure the A1 is no exception.

I do think 20x zoom is better than 13x though...

Barry, another great article, infact of all the stuff that I've seen you put out (and its alot) the only critical comment I have is on choice of music for the HVX bootcamp DVD. That is horrid. But this article is yet another informative piece and even as an HVX user I can see where an A1 would be more useful.

I am in agreement with Greg on the "Vs.". I think it makes people look for a winner and occasionally leads to agression if the one the writers subjective statements is viewed as being negative. Maybe in the future it would be better if these types of articles were labeled "&".

I think owners of a particular camera get bent out of shape, because they are worried that a producer is just going to skim over an article and see a comment that says "the X camera can look soft in certain conditions" or "Y camera has trouble with focus" and write off that camera for production even if any inteligent owner of that camera knows how to work around that particular camera's idiosyncrasies.

God, I think I've just written a horribly long winded version of Robert Lane's signature.

The above statement in my experience is untrue

I currently have an XL1 as well as the HVX. The XL1 does indeed have a clicky iris control device. Whether we call it a switch or a wheel is completely irrelevent. The clicks in the wheel can most definitely be heard ove the camera microphone, as I have had this happen before. My church has an XL2, and I believe the iris control even though different has the exact problem the XL1 has. There is definite room for improvement in this regard on the Canon cameras.

There are indeed discrete steps in the iris wheel control on the original XL1/s but with the toggle type control of the XL2, it made a less than perfect solution even worse. You can't quickly roll the iris from one spot to the other since you have to toggle to each setting with the XL2. I don't recall feeling or hearing a tactile click when moving the wheel on the XL1, but the visual image had distinctive steps from one setting to the next. Certainly not loud enough to be picked up by the onboard mic.

The main thing I was pointing out in Barry's review was that the toggle is not present on the XLH1 as it was on the XL2, even though it's still inferior to the iris ring found on the new XH cameras. It's a minor issue in the overall scheme of things.

-gb-