Camera Info

Hey,

I'm currently looking to invest in a camera, but because of my somewhat limited (OK, very limited) budget I can really only afford to spend between 500-1000 dollars. Any recommendations or am I just going to have to save up to buy anything decent?

 

Canon HV20.

 

Canon HV20 is an amazing little camera. Shoots HD, and can shoot 24P. You'll love it. It's about 1000$. I paid 1100$ for it. But if you look around, you can find probably find if for 1000 dollars. It's at the top of your budget, but trust me it's worth the money.

 

Thank you. I found it here for just over 400 bucks and I wonder why they can offer it so cheap. Before I buy it I just wanted a second opinion.

 

Sounds like a good deal, doesn't it? That's because it's a bait-and-switch scam:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Price_Cameras_6
Rather than try to find the "best price" you're better off going to a real dealer and bargaining. HV20s are pretty common and readily available at local stores.

If you insist on online purchases, use resellerratings.com to check out whether the place is a scam or not.

-Spiff

 

Do NOT buy ANYTHING from bestpricecameras.com . Bait and switch. It's a total scam. A while back I was trying to buy the Canon GL2. I found it at an amazing price at bestpricecameras.com so I decided to purchase it. First of all, to order the item, I decided to call them up and let them know i wanted to buy the camera. I was literally on hold for about 40 minutes, and then some guy finally answered the phone. He was extremely rude, not helpful at all, and in the end hung up on me. I decided to give the company another chance so I called back and I was able to get somebody else on the phone to talk to. I placed the order. I was pretty happy, buying such a nice camera for such an amazing price. For kicks, I then decided to do some research on the company. I was reading reviews for about half an hour, and everybody said this company was a scam! I called back and was luckily able to cancel my order, and when i was on the phone them, out of curiosity, I asked what came with the camera. It was just the camera body, nothing else. I'm serious when I say this too. NO BATTERY, NO CHARGER, NO CASE, NO MANUAL, NO WIRES WHATEVER SO EVER, NO NOTHING. I'm so glad i was able to back out of that. To say again, DO NOT BUY FROM BESTPRICECAMERAS.COM. They're a fraud. Relative to the Canon HV20, it's going to be within the price range of 950-1150$. If you find it somewhere for like 700 bucks or even lower, it's probably a bait and switch company. Remember, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And make sure you do your research on whatever company you're going to buy anything expensive from (google it). Just to be sure. Hope this helped.

 

Thanks a bunch, I figured it was a case of being to good to be true but I just wanted to check. Thanks, I guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and spend a bit more, lol.

 

Hah . Yeah sorry dude, probably had your hopes up too. I hate bait and switch companies.

 

B&H was $999 with free ship last time I checked...which was when I got mine.
I've seen them for $899 when googling it.

 

You could also check out the new Cano HG10. It records in 1080/24p but it records onto a hard drive with an AVCHD codec, which is FAR superior to the HDV codec that the HV20 uses. Both are fine cameras, but personally I'd get the HG10. If I were starting over and buying something for a fan film, I'd definitely get the HG10. Best bang for your buck, hands down. One thing to keep in mind though. 24p brings with it special challenges. While it looks great, it does have to be treated with some respect to get the most out of it.

 

Where do you get AVC-HD is far superior to HDV? I haven't seen that written anywhere - quite the opposite in fact.

AVC-HD is lower bitrate (currently), more compressed, more prone to macroblocking, and not supported by many editing programs... So how is it better?

-Spiff

 

Yeah I'm kind of with Spiff on this one, what makes you think that epicurus?

 

Although it does say that the maximum recording time (for normal mode) is 5 hours and 30 minutes, and the cam has a 40 GB HD. That's 121 megabytes per minute, so it shouldn't mess with the quality very much.

 

Your statement is meaningless. Compression mathematics are quite challenging to say the least, and while the AVC-HD codec should be more efficient than HDV MPEG-2 TS at the same bitrate, as soon as the bitrates differ the comparisons fall apart.

Currently AVC-HD camcorders are operating at lower bitrates than HDV (25 Mbps). I think it's because of the processing problems. The bottom line with AVC-HD though is the editing compatibility. If that's no good, the camera is kind of useless for film making.

-Spiff

 

Camcorderinfo.com's review also says that the 24p is almost unuseable on the HG10. Take that for what its worth, but they are usually pretty good about their info.

 

AVCHD is DESIGNED as a lower bitrate codec. Even at its lower bitrate, AVCHD is MORE efficient than HDV compression at higher bit rates. It is more compressed, that is true. That's because AVCHD is based on H.264 compression, not MPEG-2 like HDV. I'd look into a bit more, because AVCHD is a much better codec. When Panasonic rolls out the new intraframe AVCHD that will be the ultimate (to date) high compression codec because it records complete frames. It doesn't use GOP's, every frame is independent. For now it may be more difficult to edit AVCHD than say DV or HDV, but even when HDV came out people groaned and moaned about how taxing it was on their systems. Computers keep progressing. I'm quite excited to have a better alternative to HDV. Need more information on the subject? Try Wikipedia.

 

Yeah -Spiff-,

Take THAT. Wikipedia in yo face!

Seriously though, epicurus. Wikipedia is a horrible source to begin with, AND that particular article says absolutely nothing about AVCHD being "better" than HVD. -Spiff- is insanely smart about this stuff. I'd listen to what he has to say.

 

All right, let's throw Wikipedia out then. I merely referenced it as a common starting ground to get the basics of AVCHD out there. Let's go straight to the source. Let's look at the sheer specifications of each codec.

AVCHD vs HDV
- AVCHD can record at the full resolution of 1920x1080, HDV can only record at 1440x1080. HDV can be interpolated in camera to 1920x1080, but the actual HDV spec does not support 1080i.
- AVCHD can record in 1080i or 720p and has support for 24p in both 1080i and 720p modes, HDV only records in 1080i or 720p
- AVCHD records audio in Dolby Digital or PCM format, both of which are far less compressed than the MPEG1 audio compression that HDV uses
- AVCHD supports 5.1 and 7.1 channel surround sound. HDV only supports stereo
- AVCHD utilizes 4:2:0 sampling, which is the same as HDV.

So even by the specifications alone AVCHD proves itself a more superior codec. Want me to go further? I will.

Oh, and upon reading Spiff's bio I noticed that he owns an HDV cam. Just so things are clear, I'm not attacking your camera or its format Spiff. The Sony HDV cams are rather nice and they are not rendered obsolete by the advent of cameras utilizing AVCHD. So don't take it personal. It's just a format. I personally use a DVX100A. DV is not exactly an ideal recording medium, but it suits my purposes.

 

Typo. HDV has 2 specs, HDV1 (720p) and HDV2 (1080i/p). Both specs are flexible. For example, the Canon XL-H1/A1/G1 records their 24f format as progressive frames, whereas the HV20 records as 1080i with a 3:2 pull-down.

It can, but most/all of the cameras pick one or the other.

None of the AVC-HD camcorders out there take full advantage of the AVC-HD spec. If they did, I would agree that AVC-HD is the way to go. Therefore, by specifications alone is a foolish statement. People should select a camera based on its performance. You can go on about specifications, but what I'd like to see is a side-by-side of the HV20 and the HG10.

Believe me when I say this - I advocate that all people use the highest quality camera and codec that they can afford. Personally, I would prefer to acquire to the Cineform RAW or RedCODE RAW, as I believe these are the best acquisition formats available. When we're discussing AVC-HD and HDV we're simply discussing two generations of CBR DCT encoding, that vary in sophistication in terms of how they spread data over the GOP. Both codecs are bit-starved and both codecs are chroma-subsampled.

It's important not to confuse the HG10's AVC-HD with the (arguably irrelevant thanks to RED) Panasonic intraframe codec. By default, intra-frame codecs are not as highly compressed as their low-bitrate GOP brothers. So saying that the 'new' Panasonic codec is 'ultimate high compression' is a load of bollocks. I have seen no indications that this intra-frame codec is coming to a $1000 consumer camcorder anywhere in the near future. Sony, Panasonic, and Canon have all jumped on the AVC-HD bandwagon as the consumer format of the future... but as for the present, the HV20 and the HG10 share almost all components, so doing a side-by-side is likely a good idea to get an understanding of where the codecs are now. I haven't seen one - if you have, point me to it, and I'll give it a read.

-Spiff

EDIT: and here we go: http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=100950
and http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=101059

Reading through the comparisons just enhances my point of view that AVC-HD isn't ready for post production yet in terms of software support. Otherwise, the camera features seem to be nearly identical.

 

Well, at least your reply was well thought out and documented. Personally I still prefer AVCHD (even in its consumer iteration) over HDV, but that's just me. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. We could argue this all day, but as you said it comes down to getting the best camera that you can afford. Which is what the post was originally about, so hopefully I didn't sidetrack it that much. I'd still go with the HG10 because it doesn't use tape, thus avoiding the possibility of a tape dropout. Not to say there couldn't be other recording issues, but tapeless recording just appeals to me.

I'll agree that AVCHD isn't very easy to edit. Not yet. But neither was HDV when it first came out. Things will improve with time. They always do.

 

Well, tape is an instant archive. Hard drives are technically susceptible to shock, and only tend to last a few years. Personally, I'd prefer Compact Flash in the acquisition stage, but that doesn't solve the archiving issue.

Anyway - I'm not disagreeing with AVC-HD being a superior specification. I'm just saying the implementation isn't there, and neither is the quality boost that it promises in the future. For now, if you were to buy the HV20 there would be a huge user community knowing the ins and outs of the camera, and a huge amount of software support including every major NLE. For AVC-HD, that's just not the case.

If either the quality or the post-production of AVC-HD was better, I'd start recommending the format. Incidentally, I bought an HDV camera when quality over DV was definitely the case, but post-production didn't really exist.

-Spiff