Let the games begin! Canon HV30

Hey everyone!
Over at camcorderinfo.com there is now a review of the Canon HV30.

I remember last year how everyone went pretty ga-ga over the HV20 and how 24P allowed for more of a 'film-look'. Those who got it couldn't praise it enough. It won as 'Camcorder of the Year' so there must be something to all the hype.
Now, the HV30 has all the same features and even some new ones (such as the option to shoot in 30P). So it everyone going to go nuts over this one too?

 

Sure they will, it?s a new gadget. But I always find it funny a lot of people work with the high def format, and end up uploading on you-tube. Or, downgrading because their hardware can't cut it.

But 30p is still pretty darn nice... And them progressive frames work great in AE

 

I shoot everything in HD, whether I will work in it or not. Many people downconvert in the camcorder while capturing because theres no point in working in HD if you don't have the medium by which to watch it. I don't have a burner, a player nor an HDTV, so theres not a whole lot of point in it for my personal stuff. I will sometimes work in HD if I'm going to post it on Vimeo for my parents or something. Also, I've found that your best video quality in 24p comes when you work in HD then export to SD. Another benefit to shooting in HD is that you can capture in SD now, and archive the tape so that you can capture in HD later if you want to. You can't do that if you shoot in SD.


Some thoughts on the HV30:

30p is nice, but I won't sell my HV20 to buy one just yet. The price will probably hover around $1100 for a few months after its release, you can get the HV20 for under $700 right now.

I do like the color (black) better than the HV20. It will probably look a little less toy like.

You can get 30p out of the HV20 by using 60i mode and setting it to shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/30th, but you are stuck at that shutter speed.

I'm just happy they didn't nerf it, as Panasonic did to their GS series. Its going to be a nice camcorder.

 

It also has 3 CCDs, I believe.
They're taking out the CMOS.

All in all, not worth the extra money when you're not really getting anything more than a change in color, if that.

 

Actually the 3 CCD issue should remove the rolling shutter problem with the CMOS chip in the HV20... which happens to be the only reason I will not buy an HV20. If the HV30 has 3 CCDs, I am so there.

EDIT: "The Canon HV30 (Review, Specs, Recent News, ) is equipped with a 1/2.7-inch CMOS sensor with a gross pixel count of 2,960,000 (effective pixel count 2,070,000 in 16:9 and 1,550,000 in 4:3)".

Crap. No HV30 for me either. Rolling shutter sucks.

 

The optics and sensor will be essentially the same.

In the 10 months or so that I've had the HV20, I've never had an issue with rolling shutter.

 

Yes but other people have and have posted screen shots of the visual distortion the rolling shutter can produce. The most notable example was posted in a thread here in the fan film forums I believe. It was of a fan blade spinning while the camera was motionless. It was the deciding factor for me on whether or not to ever buy a camcorder with a rolling shutter.

 

What I want to know it if they've added pulldown flags to the mpeg2 transport stream. The HV20 is hampered by not having them.

 

I know what picture you're talking about and it's definitely fake. It was supposedly a frame from a 1/48 shutter-speed shot. As I pointed out in that thread, if that's really were the image came from, that fan's blades would've been blurred so much you wouldn't be able to tell anything was different about it. The edges of the blades definitely wouldn't have remained so crisp, as they were in the pic.

 

That's odd. Why would anyone go to the trouble to make a fake pic about CMOS rolling shutter? Regardless, there is a lot of info on the net about the rolling shutter problem with CMOS camcorders. It makes one (me) wary.

 

They were likely exaggerating the extent of the problem to help illustrate their point. In-fact, if I remember right, the one who posted it said it was fake.


Let me see if I can find the thread... I posted in it, so it shouldn't take me too long.


Edit: Found it.

And on second thought, that image might not be fake. Upon reading about it again, I see that it wasn't actually claimed that the camcorder's shutter-speed was set to 1/48th of a second. So if it was set to about 1/500th of a second or something, then the shutter may have barely outrun the fan blades, resulting in what you see in that pic.

 

I went ahead and re-googled the rolling shutter CMOS problem. It doesn't matter if that specific pic is fake, the problem is real. It does exist. It does happen.

The main issue seems to be when tracking blue/green screen markers for motion tracking done in post. The rolling shutter apparently messes that up a great deal. However the one key thing that is left out of most of the articles is the shutter speed that was being used at the time the video was shot. If the problem does not occur when shot at a shutter speed of 1/48 or 1/60 then yes, I would be willing to buy the camera. However if the problem can occur at those shutter speeds, a 3 CCD camera would be a better choice.

 

No, they will not be in the HV30's transport stream. When I emailed Canon about the issue for the HV20, Canon told me that they would not be ading the flags in any of their consumer level camcorders, it will only be included on their prosumer models.

Its a mild inconvenience though, I ended up just buying TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0, and it does a fine job. There are free ways to remove the pulldown as everyone knows, but this is just a real convenient way.

 

Actually, it happens more-so at those speeds, since it takes the shutter more time to go over the entire frame. It's just that there's more motion blur, so there won't be objects that are noticeably distorted like that fan.

 

It may be HDV at a good price, but the size, features, makes me want to wait until I can afford something with more meat. I can't foresee running a business with this. For my needs, it's not up to par. I'll stick with the HVX for HD (yes i know there's a $5000 or so difference). I'd like to see footage from one of these (or the 20 either) broadcast in HD on one of the local channels as that's the market we're in. I've seen HVX footage in commercials, and it looks OK, but have never seen any HDV footage on there.

 

I'd love to buy the HVX200, but my wife won't let me mortgage the house to buy one. I read in a magazine that the new 32g P2 card will cost $1695. If you are running a business, its justifiable and possibly practical (depending on the business). But as a hobbyist I just can't justify it.

 

I've had the same ongoing debates about whether or not I should buy an HV series camera, especially considering you can get a HV20 for $600 on ebay.

It seems like the release of the HV30 makes the HV20 even more accessible b/c it'll go down further in price, while the difference in features isn't all that impressive.

My only drawback is the infamous rolling shutter issue. I was essentially ready to buy an HV20 a couple months back, and somehow just stumbled upon the articles/threads about this issue and it stopped me dead in my tracks. I see people write they've owned one for months and never had a problem, but are you guys shooting alot of matchmoving shots? If so, could I take a look at one or 2 of them?

It's unfortunate for my situation, in that I just happen to be a matchmoving nut. I'm absolutley amazed at the types of effects you can pull off; and each one still gives me that "woah" factor when I looked at the finished product. I'd say that 65% of the stuff I'd be shooting would be little matchmoving tests.

So for me, as an effects test hobbyist, (more so than a filmmaker) it seems like the HV series just aren't the ideal choice.

gallion311

 

No, I'm not doing much matchmoving at all, although I'd like to. Its obviously more of an issue for some people because of the type of work they do with it. With general shooting, I've never seen a bad frame due to rolling shutter, with fast or slow action, fast or slow shutter, but then I don't look at all my footage frame by frame. Its quite possible that there is some in there. I shoot a lot on Auto, but sometimes manually control shutter speed or aperature, usually to lock it down in low light.

But it is clearly an issue that people are encountering, I've seen it brought up on every forum, along with sample footage. But among "non-VFX" type enthusiasts, I've encountered very few people that weren't extremely happy with their HV20.

 

Is it just VFX types in general that complain about the shutter, or is it just the matchmovers? I would think that any other effect it wouldn't be a problem with. Saber rotoing, for example, probably wouldn't be an issue, I would think.

 

Is it just VFX types in general that complain about the shutter, or is it just the matchmovers? I would think that any other effect it wouldn't be a problem with. Saber rotoing, for example, probably wouldn't be an issue, I would think.

I would think a little bit of both, b/c alot of times those 2 positions would be occupied by the same person (in the amatuer/ consumer world at least).

But I think a matchmover would complain more than a VFX artist; and it all depends on the shot/effect. I would imagine rotoing isn't affected all that much. While there may be some distortion in a couple frames; it all happens so quick at 24-30 frames/sec that it's not like you'd even see it. But even if there is distortion you could always manually fix it; based on how you know the saber blade should look.

I think the biggest issues are where the computer is doing alot of the work. So a program is depending on certain consistencies among angles/parallax in tracking points to determine the proper camera position, but if those features are distorted and incorrect then so will be the track.

I think a brain can always disregard a known error and do it right....a computer will just get confused.

gallion311

 

Much like Gallion, I consider myself much more an FX hobbyist rather than a film maker, and my interests lean toward shooting models and doing a lot of green screen work.
Are HV cameras really just not ideal for that role? Why not? Where does that info. come from?
I wonder how necessary the whole "30P" thing is. Any footage I've seen of the HV20 has been through youtube, so a lot of mashing has already been done to the video by the time we see it.
Since I have never seen or worked with 24P footage in After Effects or Final Cut Pro (Mac user here), can anyone out there vouch for how good it is for shooting miniatures and greenscreen work?
And if and HV20 and HV30 are not great for doing this kind of thing, are there any consumer-level HD cameras that are?

 

HDV is fine for VFX work, especially when compared to DV. The concern about rolling shutter stems from the CMOS sensor in the HV20 and some other camcorders. All camcorders with CMOS sensors are susceptible to possible rolling shutter, regardless of brand. I have not seen any in my footage, but again, I don't always look at every frame. I can say that the HV20 works quite well for greenscreen work, including 24p. I have never shot miniatures before, nor have I really done any matchmoving.

If you have any concerns about it, look for an HDV camcorder that uses CCD's instead of CMOS sensors.

30p is not necessary, just a "nice to have" feature for most. I'd like to have it, but I won't pay the extra $300 or so above the price of the HV20 for it. Many in the wedding videography community will like it because it will make it easier to match up with 30f footage from their XH-A1's.

 

Don't waste time on CMOS vs. CCD. Both technologies are fine, and in the future most will be CMOS.

Also, don't waste time on talking about rolling shutter. It isn't a particularly important at most reasonable frame rates and shutter speeds. Only at really high shutter does it become a noticeable distortion.

For example, Red One uses a CMOS chip, and can be made to show rolling shutter artifacts.

Also, 3 CCD is a relic from the old days where chip resolution was too low for bayer patterning to be effective. The prism for 3 CCD optics introduces all kinds of colour distortion, and decreases resolution through chip alignment issues.

-Spiff