Canon announces XL H1 HDV Cam

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Yummy Canon goodness



Man this thing is nice.



Doesn't do true 24p recording but Canon says their 24 Frame feature will look equivalent. We'll see about that.



HD-SDI output. Record uncompressed to a deck or computer even. Nice.



1080i recording on native 16x9 CCD(3x)



Pro inputs(XLR,BNC)



Spendy $9k That's twice the price of Sony's HDV Pro cam. Canon is going to have to do really well with the performance here.





I like it...but then again I have no intentions of laying out nigh 10 grand.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    if interlaced video wasn't a 50 year old technology that is useless at this point, 1080i might be acceptable.
  • Reply 2 of 6
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    if interlaced video wasn't a 50 year old technology that is useless at this point, 1080i might be acceptable.



    I know ....I know. HDV is kind of being displayed in kludgy ways. All the HDV cams have 1080i maximum support.



    Panasonic was smart to branch out and bring us HD recording at 1808p and at 4.2.2 to boot.



    However just bring HD and the market will sort itself out. Cedia 2005 just ended and the era of 1080p sets is upon us. 5 years from now most HD cameras should be 1080p and most sets should accept 1080p inputs. Wooohoo.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    This a really nice camera. It's twice the price of my XL 1 and 2.



    I've asked Canon for years why they didn't want to get into a higher range, and the reason they gave me was that they didn't want to be though of as challenging their partners, as they are the biggest maker of video lenses.



    This camera is definitely a step up though. Three native 16:9 sensors each with a rez of 1.67M pixels. Uncompressed HD-SDI and SD-SDI output. Genlock sync or SMPT timecode input and output. 2.4" 16:9 viewfinder. It even has a distance readout feature!



    This has all (plus some) of the improvements and adjustments of the XL 2 as well.



    This worth the not quite big bucks. It will go for about $7,500 - $8,000 once the first adopters have it.



    Happily I'll be seeing it at the Photo-Expo in the Javits Center mid October.



    I have to go now. Got to wipe the drool off my keyboard.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    agreed Melgross.



    How's your XL2 doing?



    Honestly 8 grand is out my price range today but say in a few years I know that grabbing a successor to the Sony HDV cam or Canon will be feasible. I'm just happy to see HD recording go from the stratospheric to under 10k



    At Cedia 2005 Sony announced the new under $10k SXRD 1080p Front Projector. Yes it will accept a 1080p HDMI input and uses new chips from the SXRD Qualia lineup. This is an unheard of price point for this excellent technology.



    HDTV is coming together very nicely. It's quite possible that many people will have content of their own production that exceeds the quality of HDTV broadcasts.



    Now if we could just get a cameras with removable lens, 35mm sensor and direct to hard drive recording with all the manual controls that a Pro expects. Dare I say that would be a most disruptive technology.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    agreed Melgross.



    How's your XL2 doing?



    Honestly 8 grand is out my price range today but say in a few years I know that grabbing a successor to the Sony HDV cam or Canon will be feasible. I'm just happy to see HD recording go from the stratospheric to under 10k



    At Cedia 2005 Sony announced the new under $10k SXRD 1080p Front Projector. Yes it will accept a 1080p HDMI input and uses new chips from the SXRD Qualia lineup. This is an unheard of price point for this excellent technology.



    HDTV is coming together very nicely. It's quite possible that many people will have content of their own production that exceeds the quality of HDTV broadcasts.



    Now if we could just get a cameras with removable lens, 35mm sensor and direct to hard drive recording with all the manual controls that a Pro expects. Dare I say that would be a most disruptive technology.




    It's a great camera, just as my old XL 1 was(is). The amount of control is amazing. The picture quality is also noticeably better. Canon does listen. The only gripe is that the low level sensitivity is somewhat less. This new one promises better, but I haven't found a specs page on their site yet, so I can't tell what it is. This camera, from what we do know, should have a much higher picture quality than the $3,000-$4,000 units from Panasonic and Sony, as well as a far greater range of features, pro and otherwise. The Sony and Panasonic cameras use far too much compression for my taste, and you can see it in many instances. It can be ugly. If the uncompressed output from this is what I hope it is, we should see quality far above those models.



    In many instances my XL 2 shoots better images than either the Sony or Panasonic, even allowing for the fact that they are HDef and mine isn't (though it does shoot true 16:9, unlike any other SDef camera that doesn't cost three times as much, and thus gives a direct comparison).



    Of course, this does have a removable lens, and all the manual controls a pro expects, even more so than my camera. Direct to disk recording has been around for several years with several units available for my XL 2 and this. While it's not in the camera, you mount it onto your belt and record in parallel with the tape in the camera. you don't have to use the tape if you don't want to.



    We won't get a 16:9 35 mm size sensor for this price camera. With three sensors, and improved tech behind them that's pretty good. Triple 1/2" sensor cameras are much more expensive than this, and triple 2/3" sensor ones cost several times as much. 1" sensor models are in the $100,000 range, and are far larger and heavier - 20-25 pounds or so.



    Just remembered. 1080i technology is not at all old or outdated as was mentioned here. It will take years for 1080p to become more than a rare medium for broadcast. Meanwhile my new Samsung 67" 1080p rear projector DLP looks great.No 1080p to watch though. Only some stuff Apple and others have from the web. I can move1080i to 1080p in the set so that it can be seen that way. If the stuff is really good, it can look better. But not by too much.



    I'm not sure my wife will let me get this without selling my others, with the lenses. We'll see next year. If I can get six for all of it, I might do it.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Ah, addition. Stupid me. I found the spec page. Still don't see that though.
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