Camcorders Sony HC7 and Canon HV10 / HV20

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hi guys,



For those that are up to speed with camcorders which is the best of the above in your opinion and why?



I am in the market for a new camcorder. I have just got my first macbook and obviously want to have a play with imovie a bit more and send movies back home as we have just moved away from family.



Your advice would be appreciated.



Regards



Poppet



p.s are there any others I should be looking at that work well with imovie. These tend to be the 3 I have come across the most that are recommended for use with macs etc. Cheers



pps the prices are much more expensive in Oz than the states right now so I may hold off until they drop a bit.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    m.o.s.tm.o.s.t Posts: 255member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Poppet View Post


    Hi guys,



    For those that are up to speed with camcorders which is the best of the above in your opinion and why?



    I am in the market for a new camcorder. I have just got my first macbook and obviously want to have a play with imovie a bit more and send movies back home as we have just moved away from family.



    Your advice would be appreciated.



    Regards



    Poppet



    p.s are there any others I should be looking at that work well with imovie. These tend to be the 3 I have come across the most that are recommended for use with macs etc. Cheers



    pps the prices are much more expensive in Oz than the states right now so I may hold off until they drop a bit.





    I have the HV10. I like it

    Dont know much about Sony's Cam

    Have you looked on cnet.com under reviews for cams? -Might be helpful
  • Reply 2 of 16
    poppetpoppet Posts: 90member
    Anyone else got a view on these models? Going to make the jump over the next few days. The Canon HV20 is suppose to be great but I like the physical feel of the sony hc7 (I have small hands and I can get my hand around it better).



    I am so undecided which way to go on this one please help me.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Poppet View Post


    Anyone else got a view on these models? Going to make the jump over the next few days. The Canon HV20 is suppose to be great but I like the physical feel of the sony hc7 (I have small hands and I can get my hand around it better).



    I am so undecided which way to go on this one please help me.



    Camcorderinfo.com comes out pretty firmly in favour of the HV20- I'm in the market for a new camcorder too and based on the comparisons in the review below, and the equally comprehensive individual review for the HV20 that's the one I'm going to go for (hopefully next time I go through Oslo duty free if I can find one there).



    Check out http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...JVC-GZ-HD7.htm

    for a pretty comprehensive comparative review...
  • Reply 4 of 16
    poppetpoppet Posts: 90member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by gilfanon View Post


    Camcorderinfo.com comes out pretty firmly in favour of the HV20- I'm in the market for a new camcorder too and based on the comparisons in the review below, and the equally comprehensive individual review for the HV20 that's the one I'm going to go for (hopefully next time I go through Oslo duty free if I can find one there).



    Check out http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...JVC-GZ-HD7.htm

    for a pretty comprehensive comparative review...





    I've just found some clips on youtube. The HV20 footage looks very clear in comparisson to sony hc7. I wonder if this due to the compression in editing or the HV20 is that much better. So far the all the reviews point to canon hv20 I just preferred the sony to hold and the look of it but at the end of the day I won't be thinking about that in 10 year time when looking back at the stuff I've filmed.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    Was at a shop today doing preliminary research into my new cam.



    The new Panasonic SD5s and Hitachi BlueRay (it's big) cams arrived this week so it was an interesting afternoon. The guy at the shop said that if you want great quality and tape, go with the HV20. I played with it for a while and it was pretty nice, almost nice enough to fork over cash for.



    Personally, however, I want to move away from tape as transfer times are faster from HDD or SD and I can preview any clip I've already made at any time without rewinding, etc. to make sure the shot was taken correctly. I also am looking for good zoom capability for when I go bird watching this winter. Several species, especially the mandarin ducks that spend some time here, are very shy and stay a fair distance away; I only got one good image last season.



    Next week I have arranged to take my MBP to the shop so I can shoot demo videos with several cams and then import them to iMovie to take home and compare. Hopefully the shop won't be busy and they will let me yank the cams outside so I can shoot moving objects (there are some pigeons near the shop who would make great subjects) but I may have to be content with filming store staff along the aisles. I plan to test: Panasonic's SD5, Canon's HV20 and HG10, two Sonys and a Victor and maybe some others depending on how much time I can afford.
  • Reply 6 of 16
    akacakac Posts: 512member
    I personally want the highest quality, but SSD makes me pause. I know its AVCHD which is a bit worse than HDV, but what I've seen with many camcorders with tape you sometimes can hear the engine noise of the tape. I want better audio. Also I love the idea of hooking it up and being able to work with the data at full transfer speeds.



    I'd love to hear how the Panasonic does.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    poppetpoppet Posts: 90member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bergermeister View Post


    Was at a shop today doing preliminary research into my new cam.



    The new Panasonic SD5s and Hitachi BlueRay (it's big) cams arrived this week so it was an interesting afternoon. The guy at the shop said that if you want great quality and tape, go with the HV20. I played with it for a while and it was pretty nice, almost nice enough to fork over cash for.



    Personally, however, I want to move away from tape as transfer times are faster from HDD or SD and I can preview any clip I've already made at any time without rewinding, etc. to make sure the shot was taken correctly. I also am looking for good zoom capability for when I go bird watching this winter. Several species, especially the mandarin ducks that spend some time here, are very shy and stay a fair distance away; I only got one good image last season.



    Next week I have arranged to take my MBP to the shop so I can shoot demo videos with several cams and then import them to iMovie to take home and compare. Hopefully the shop won't be busy and they will let me yank the cams outside so I can shoot moving objects (there are some pigeons near the shop who would make great subjects) but I may have to be content with filming store staff along the aisles. I plan to test: Panasonic's SD5, Canon's HV20 and HG10, two Sonys and a Victor and maybe some others depending on how much time I can afford.





    This would be great if you get the chance. I am sure we would all love to hear first hand the experiences. Unfortunately I always have my two toddlers in tow so my shopping experience is rather limited!!



    Can anyone tell me. When you import to imovie from a HD DV tape do you lose the quality. That's what I have just been told and was surprised by that as everyone raves about the quality of the Canon HV20. The guys in the camera shop seemed to think the quality wasn't much different by the time you imported because it is compressed to the same level as the hard disk drive cameras. If this is the case it does make me think twice about get the tape versions. Everyone keeps telling me they are on there way out. Perhap so but I thought it was a better version to work with on a computer.



    Thanks for any responses.



    Poppet
  • Reply 8 of 16
    Change in plans...



    Well, I needed a mic attachment so I had to go with the HG10 (also suddenly needed it a week earlier than I had hoped). Bought it today and will use it tomorrow. Will post about it tomorrow night.
  • Reply 9 of 16
    poppetpoppet Posts: 90member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bergermeister View Post


    Change in plans...



    Well, I needed a mic attachment so I had to go with the HG10 (also suddenly needed it a week earlier than I had hoped). Bought it today and will use it tomorrow. Will post about it tomorrow night.





    Hi ya,



    Which model did you get did you mean Canon HV10 or did you get something else?
  • Reply 10 of 16
  • Reply 11 of 16
    Just finished looking at the videos and photos I shot with the Canon HG10. I spent the day on a ten-hour adventure around the peninsula across the bay from where I live. The weather was great (a fairly hot 34 degrees Celsius and pretty humid, but clear). Visited one of Japan's main rocket launching facilities which is perched on a small peninsula with equipment scattered around on various little peaks (Japan's topography is amazing, as is how they live on it).



    To the point of the adventure: How did the HG10 perform?



    ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLY GORGEOUS VIDEO! Knocks the socks off my several-years old Panasonic 3CCD. I was playing back on our 26" sony Bravia TV... my wife thought the news was on until I told her it was the video I shot. She didn't believe me until I replayed it again. She was stunned. I will try printing a frame tomorrow, but can already say I think the result will be pretty good.



    INCREDIBLE PHOTOS! Also took along my Canon Xti for the ride and shot many scenes with both and will compare them tomorrow.



    The HG10 is a Hard Disk camera, which makes browsing through video as easy as looking through a photo book... This reminds me of that one we looked at a couple of minutes ago... this one. It is awesome; I am dumping my old, tape-based camera at the office tomorrow. The future is here.



    The controls are also very minimalist (more complete options are available through menus) so the camera is pretty straight-forward to use.



    I will talk more about this tomorrow, but as I roamed around today shooting clips I sort of had a realization about how iMovie 08 might be made for his camera.
  • Reply 12 of 16
    poppetpoppet Posts: 90member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bergermeister View Post


    Just finished looking at the videos and photos I shot with the Canon HG10. I spent the day on a ten-hour adventure around the peninsula across the bay from where I live. The weather was great (a fairly hot 34 degrees Celsius and pretty humid, but clear). Visited one of Japan's main rocket launching facilities which is perched on a small peninsula with equipment scattered around on various little peaks (Japan's topography is amazing, as is how they live on it).



    To the point of the adventure: How did the HG10 perform?



    ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLY GORGEOUS VIDEO! Knocks the socks off my several-years old Panasonic 3CCD. I was playing back on our 26" sony Bravia TV... my wife thought the news was on until I told her it was the video I shot. She didn't believe me until I replayed it again. She was stunned. I will try printing a frame tomorrow, but can already say I think the result will be pretty good.



    INCREDIBLE PHOTOS! Also took along my Canon Xti for the ride and shot many scenes with both and will compare them tomorrow.



    The HG10 is a Hard Disk camera, which makes browsing through video as easy as looking through a photo book... This reminds me of that one we looked at a couple of minutes ago... this one. It is awesome; I am dumping my old, tape-based camera at the office tomorrow. The future is here.



    The controls are also very minimalist (more complete options are available through menus) so the camera is pretty straight-forward to use.



    I will talk more about this tomorrow, but as I roamed around today shooting clips I sort of had a realization about how iMovie 08 might be made for his camera.





    Wow. Glad you liked your new camera. I think we will all be happy with what ever we get in the end as the standards has increased so much.



    To open it up for a bit of discussion and advice I have a bit of an issue with using this type of camera. First of all I would have to use imovie 08 and one feature that I use alot with imovie hd when editing is the sound control. I believe imovie 08 lacks this. When I import from multiple sources the sound is often messed up. I also sometime need to raise sound levels of my little ones at the same time tone down the noise at the beach etc. Perhaps I need wait until my macbook replacement arrives and hopefully has ilife 08 on it. Then I can comment first hand. I definately would consider getting some sort of final cut but I believe its quite expensive. Does final cut import avchd? How hard is final cut to get used to??



    I really like the idea of download times being less but its not that big a deal as I can just stick it on to import whilst I am doing something else. I certainly can see some advantages with going avchd as have already been pointed out. I am definately wondering about it all again.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    poppetpoppet Posts: 90member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Poppet View Post


    Wow. Glad you liked your new camera. I think we will all be happy with what ever we get in the end as the standards has increased so much.



    To open it up for a bit of discussion and advice I have a bit of an issue with using this type of camera. First of all I would have to use imovie 08 and one feature that I use alot with imovie hd when editing is the sound control. I believe imovie 08 lacks this. When I import from multiple sources the sound is often messed up. I also sometime need to raise sound levels of my little ones at the same time tone down the noise at the beach etc. Perhaps I need wait until my macbook replacement arrives and hopefully has ilife 08 on it. Then I can comment first hand. I definately would consider getting some sort of final cut but I believe its quite expensive. Does final cut import avchd? How hard is final cut to get used to??



    I really like the idea of download times being less but its not that big a deal as I can just stick it on to import whilst I am doing something else. I certainly can see some advantages with going avchd as have already been pointed out. I am definately wondering about it all again.



    Do you have an update for how you are getting on with your camcorder? Would love to know. Hope to purchase mine this coming week.



    Thanks



    Poppet
  • Reply 14 of 16
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bergermeister View Post


    Change in plans...



    Well, I needed a mic attachment so I had to go with the HG10 (also suddenly needed it a week earlier than I had hoped). Bought it today and will use it tomorrow. Will post about it tomorrow night.



    I know it is too late, but HV20 does have a shoe mount that will accept a mic, so I don't understand what you mean here. There are other advantages to that machine over HV20, but the mic mount doesn't seem to be one of them.
  • Reply 15 of 16
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Akac View Post


    I personally want the highest quality, but SSD makes me pause. I know its AVCHD which is a bit worse than HDV, but what I've seen with many camcorders with tape you sometimes can hear the engine noise of the tape. I want better audio. Also I love the idea of hooking it up and being able to work with the data at full transfer speeds.



    AVCHD can have better or worse quality than HDV, there are many factors that affect quality, the codec is a fairly small piece of the puzzle in many respects. AVCHD does offer several different bitrate and resoution choices, more than HDV, but different AVCHD cameras support different max bitrates. The earliest ones maxed out at something like 12Mbps, which is kind of limited. HV10's 15Mbps is a little better. The AVCHD standard offers up to 25Mbps, which can easily be a lot better than HDV, assuming the encoder is good everything else is equal.



    Hard drives do have a vibration, so I don't know for sure if that would be quieter than a tape mechanism or not. My guess is that it is probably easier to isolate.
  • Reply 16 of 16
    I was considering the Panasonic SD camera which doesn't have a shoe. The HV20 does, but I wanted to go away from tape.



    The HG10 is a very nice camera and it works very nicely. The only thing I have found about it is that the data transfer is slower than real time (I thought it would be faster), especially for highest quality. However, the quality is amazing. I wish they had included a FW800 or ethernet connector.



    If you take lots of short clips, you can choose which ones to transfer to the computer; you don't have to transfer the ground shots, etc. In short, it is a great match with iMovie 08.
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