Overall, the optics are pretty good for a camera in this price range. Most impressive is the exposure latitude. I’d say that 9.5 f-stops that I read about in one of (Adam Wilt’s?) the online reviews is pretty much spot on. The latitude on this camera is phenomenal! It looks like HDR images (high dynamic range) that people are making by doing double exposure and fusing them together in PhotoShop.

Some very difficult scenes, such as pointing up through the trees in a dense and relatively dark forest, that would have far too much contrast to reproduce with anything but black crushed shadows and blown highlights, proved to be no challenge for the V1U. The dark tree trunks had great detail, and the sky appeared blue, not blown or white clipped. Under the bushes, in the shadows, normally too dark for normal cameras, the V1U revealed a covering of dried leaves. In fact, what I saw in the viewfinder pretty much matched what I saw with my eyes. Kudos to Sony for producing a camera that can handle extreme backlighting and intense dynamic range while retaining detail in every area.

The sound… while I have not run RightMark Audio Analyzer on it yet, my impression is that it’s in another class compared to the VX/PD models. Much quieter, even with the supplied shotgun mic. The ultimate test was connected my studio condenser mics and observing the quality. I’m going to make some frequency response measurements and s/n measurements later on. The mic input padding is a great touch. This camera should be able to take the hottest condenser mics and not overload even when recording some very loud events. The on-board mic picks up some motor and zoom noise. Should not be a problem with separate mics placed elsewhere.

I did some experimenting with the light levels based on the flip out LCD panel. My observations indicate that 0dB gain setting with 1/30th second shutter approximate the brightness level perceived by my eyes when looking at the room and various illumination levels. My VX2000 would gain up so severely that the dark corners looked unnaturally bright. By locking this camera at 0dB, the light levels look realistic, comparing LCD to direct view of the room. I carried it into an adjacent darkened room and found that at 1/15th sec, the light levels were enough to read a box label and see what color it is.

Did some shooting outdoors, with my daughter in her sandbox, which includes some colorful plastic toys. I must preface things with a warning not to turn sharpening past the mid point, as the HDV CODEC breaks down rapidly with too much edge detail. With normal sharpening, the day-glo organ, abutting the day-glo green plastic parts of this toy held up quite well. A review of this in SD DV revealed terrible color blockiness.

Even on daylight footage, the weakness of the HDV format is apparent, in the darker areas. On my 47” LCD display, I could clearly see block artifacts in every area but the brighter areas.

The camera appeared to handle after dusk scenery (with gain set to 0dB) fairly well on the flip screen, but on the big LCD in the studio, it’s full of noise and a ridiculous amount of block artifacts. It’s reminiscent of my TRV900, shooting at night, from the dashboard of my car, and compressed to low bitrate MPEG2 with an early version TMPGenc. This footage already suffers from compression artifacts worse than regular DV that has been rendered through the worst MPEG compressor. In an age where I can produce DVDs that have no visible artifacts on a 47” screen, seeing this much macroblocking made me realize that HDV can never be suitable for professional work.

Fortunately, there is HDMI output and the Black Magic Intensity Pro HDMI capture card to enable me to capture uncompressed off this camera. Perhaps one day, a portable solution will be available that will make quality footage shooting outside the studio, possible.

The V1U is a mixed bag. The noise level is not too bad on the chips, but the low bitrate of the CODEC can’t handle it well at all, so picture quality suffers badly. It’s uncompressed output probably looks great. I’m going to fire it up later, camera mode, directly into the big LCD panel and see how the noise looks there. The blockiness is what really takes things down several notches in quality. Give it a bright outdoor scene and it looks fine. But indoor footage, especially of black objects, introduces a kind of noise that compresses poorly, making the images look like JPEGs compressed at a setting of “1” in PhotoShop.

The optics are pretty good. The long zoom is quite impressive, and the 1.5X digital extender seems to add quite a bit more, without a visible quality hit. I’ve programmed the 6 buttons for various frequent-use functions, including digital extender. At the long end of the zoom, it can bring rather distant objects in very close, and sharp.

Black stretch does a very good job of bringing up details in the shadows. With that and a low highlight compression knee, the camera can handle a huge latitude of light and seems to approximate what I see with my own eyes.

The LCD is of great quality, and no dead or stuck pixels. The viewfinder is fantastic for a viewfinder, with a fine dot pitch and accurate colors. Focusing aids are very effective, with Peaking being easy to spot.



The zoom ring is the best I’ve seen in a servo ring. You can start with the slowest creep and, unlike the VX, it will follow your movement from imperceptible to medium fast. The Iris control is smooth and continuous control, not stepped, like the VX and it feels smooth. Focus works well, and the distance in feet is a nice added touch. The lens hood is a classy piece of hardware, with barn doors that look and feel great in their open/close action.

Depth of field is tolerable. With the longer zoom, it is still possible to create depth-limited focus illusions. Although it requires more distance from camera-subject-background.

The overall body of the camera is black plastic, and doesn’t feel quite the same as the VX, but still is solid and imparts a general feeling of quality. The XLR jacks are solid and easy to plug/unplug mic cables from. Most I/O connections are behind hinged doors instead of rubber flaps. However, the headphone jack is one of the few behind rubber, and it’s a pain to plug in headphones with that rubber not easily being pushed out of the way.

In general, I’ll have to work with it for a while and decide if it’s worth getting another one and to phase out the VX’s. In DV mode, I think it will handle the noise better, so I gain widescreen capability and a better zoom lens. In HDV mode, well, that CODEC is a joke. HDMI output seems to be the only way to go, there.

THE AUDIO PART
I have run a sweep of the audio response. The high end was only down a couple of dB at 20KHz, but the low end started to roll starting at 1KHz! Here’s a graph of the low end of the response. It’s down a full 32dB @ 20Hz!!!

This is line level, no noise reduction and no wind filter. (Setting those in subsequent tests had no effect on frequency response.)

www.basspig.com/images/HVR-V1U Line Input Response.gif


I can only guess that Sony is using small ceramic chip caps to block DC at the inputs and that these caps have very small capacitance values, hence the rolloff starting so high. This is a shame.

The noise level at the input, with no signal, was -57dB, an improvement over the VX, but still nowhere near CD-quality. One would expect a -90dB noise floor, or better, on a pro-grade piece of gear. Oh wait… just because B&H lists the HVR-V1U in their Professional Video section of the catalog, doesn’t mean it’s really for professional use. :-)

This rather kills my hope of not having to drag along the MotU 896 and a laptop to all the events where sound is important.
EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD
I just returned from my first official shoot with this camera. It was a spoken presentation by a book author and it took place at a library. It is a very old library, and the lighting was from 100 year old “hanging basket” fixtures with good old fashioned incandescent bulbs. The room was paneled in a very dark wood, darker than walnut.

Owing to the noise problems even at 0dB gain, I was reluctant to push it past +3dB gain, but I found it necessary. Despite this, the signal on the tape never exceeded 30 IRE. It was that dim in there. Think of an intimate restaurant kind of lighting. Surprising for a library, but this isn’t a reading room—those were downstairs and well lit with fluorescent fixtures that were more modern. When I first walked into this room, I realized I was going to have a problem on this shoot. Even at 1/30th shutter, zoomed in a little bit, so the best aperture I could do was f2.4, the picture was dim. It looked about the same in the LCD as it did to my eyes, so I figured “okay” and decided not to push the noise up.

I used a coincident pair of condenser mics at the podium, connected to the camera’s XLR inputs. I found that I needed to turn the gain up to 9 to get decent levels. The inputs are not very sensitive, even without the pads enabled.

I’ve captured the footage to the NLE, using Vegas 7e. While the audio sounded clean, it also sounded tinny. The condenser mics have a flat 20-20K response and tend to sound rather bass-heavy, but the audio this camera captured sounded tinny.


CONCLUSION

I really don't see why this year's HD cams can't achieve the same picture quality, but with that many more pixels. And oooh, what the heck did Sony do with the audio chain in this camera? It's awful! It's like the inputs are connected via 0.1uF capacitors, as there's no lower midrange and no bass at all to speak of, even with a feed off the mixer board direct into the camera's Line inputs. Even with the mixer's bass controls boosted all the way, the sound is still tinny. The low end response is way worse than that of the VX2000, which really stunned me. Any company serious enough to put balanced audio on a camera needs to at least offer decent frequency response. This one really has me scratching my head.

As for the video, all I consider to be a minimum sensitivity is that the camera take pictures with indoor lighting of normal levels without resorting to +18dB gain up. Any decent camera should be able to shoot at 0dB f 2.0 under a bank of 75W PAR floods in a typical sitting room setting without resorting to 1/30th second shutter speeds or gain up tricks. I shot a fairly brightly lit sitting room at this library the other day (because it was ornate and historically significant) and the room was lit by a grid of 32 PAR floods for a room with windows that was about 14'x14' and the camera was at 1/30th and wanted +6dB gain up, and even more at 1/60th shutter speed! The video I managed to shoot is full of motion blur artifacts from the 1/30th shutter, so bad that I could have shot sharper looking footage with the VX2000 and its faster chips. The camera is a joke for indoor shooting. It's even marginal on a cloudy afternoon in a forested area. It doesn't appear to get optimal until shooting in direct sunlight. With the VX2000, I was glad the days of multi-thousand watt HMI lighting were behind me for indoor shoots. With the V1U, it appears to be a throwback to the 1980s, where cameras needed many kilowatts of lighting banks to produce a decent picture.

I guess I'll wait for XDCam EX.

Thanks for the review Mark.

I would say that some of us here at AVS probably won't be looking at the HVR-V1U, but its nice to have the input.

Quick link on the camera: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/minisites/HDV1080/HVR-V1U/index.html

How do you like your Black Magic Intensity Pro HDMI capture card ?

This is a great review, Basspig... I am hesitating between a Sony HVR-V1U and the Canon XH-A1... I'd be very interested to know what kind of results you will get capturing live video from the Sony's HDMI port...

I don't yet have a Black Magic Intensity card, but I'm considering one for my next editing workstation. The HDMI capture would enable full 1920x1080 frames to be captured at 4:2:2 color resolution.

I've already looked at the HDMI output, but limited by a 3' HDMI cable unplugged from the back of my Oppo DVD player and plugged into the HVR-V1U. The problem is that the V1U outputs 1080i, so my Vizio goes into overscan, ruining my evaluation of the picture because it's no longer a 1:1 pixel ratio. I've been evaluating images played back on the editing workstation, with the output set to 1080P so far.

The Canon HA-A1 was out because it does not do 30P. Also, it suffers from the same problems of using 1.1Mpixel chips to produce an HD picture. In outdoor daylight situations, the V1U produces more detail than the Canon.

Dollar for dollar though, I'd say the Canon HV20 gives the most bang for the buck, about 85% of the picture, maybe better low light, albeit less controls and professional features.

The minimum standard I apply to ANY camera is that it should have enough light sensitivity to shoot without electronic 'gain up' under indoor lighting conditions normally found in most homes and businesses. None of the HDV cameras today meet this requirement. My VX2000 (a good SD cam) shoots F2 at 0dB in normal room lighting. The HVR-V1U must use gain up at F1.6 (max aperture) to achieve the same picture brightness.

And, it can't be said enough: What was Sony thinking, when they rolled off the low frequency response starting at 1,000Hz?! The bass response is down 32dB @20Hz. It starts to roll at 1,000Hz. Normally, one could expect a cheap camera to be flat to 80Hz and then start to roll at 3dB/octave below that. But this one doesn't even record speech faithfully. It makes voices sound tinny, and male voices especially.


I shot some footage under bright lighting today of my daughter and when I viewed it, I noted an artifact that I noticed on the HV20 footage: posterization of skin tones. It was particularly severe, as it makes the images look like the result when you convert 24-bit photos to 8-bit GIF images without dither--the cheeks show bands of colors ranging from red to greenish, divided by a staircase of macroblock edges. It's awful. And particularly in portrait shots, I find it unacceptable. This is a problem with all HDV cameras I've viewed, not just the V1U.

I am quite confused by you saying XH-A1 doesn't do 30p. I thought it does 24F, 30F and 60i.

I guess there will be a never-ending debate about V1's 3x1/4" CMOS sensors versus A1's 3x1/3" CCD's.

Where Sony has the advantage is the HDMI port which allows you to bypass the hdv compression.

If you want HDMI capture to a laptop, you can look at an adapter by a company called 'Catalyst Enterprises' which allows a PCI Express card like Intensity to be connected to a laptop's Expresscard slot. The set-up could be a bit shaky but it might just work.

Frame mode is not the same as Progressive scan. At first, I too thought it was, but on further study, I learned that it is two fields that have been combined and deinterlaced by the Digic processor. The problem here is loss of resolution (which was evident in the pictures) and blurring between fields on pan shots.

HDMI is uncompressed, and I don't know if the Intensity card has a hardware compression feature, but if it doesn't, then a striped RAID array of Western Digital Raptor drives at 15,000 rpm would be bare minimum requirement to capture the stream. No laptop has a RAID array.

Basspig, I had the FX7, the 'consumer' counterpart to the V1U. I sold it recently, but I honestly have found the tiny Canon HV20 to have at least as good, if not better, picture quality. I did many A/Bs with these two cams and the lower noise floor of the Canon is what sold me. I found too many artifacts with the Sony that simply don't exist or are much less intrusive with the Canon. The HV20's picture is just so clean, it's amazing. I also found the Sony lens to have CA that was visible at the outer 15% or so of the video. Sometimes it wasn't visible and at other times it was annoying. The Canon lens seems to be free of this. Interestingly the larger Canon HDV units seem to be plagued with the CA issue.

I do miss that large, very nice, Sony viewfinder on the FX7/V1U. The Canon viewfinder is decent, but not in the same ballpark as the Sony.

Since I was using the camera for fun, I couldn't justify keeping the larger FX7 when the Canon did at least as good a job, if not better.

I looked at a lot of HV20 footage downloaded off a couple of user web sites and indeed, it is clean and pretty free of noise. I did notice the banding/posterizing problems in the shadow areas of light-colored objects, but the noise was a fine grain. Albeit, the picture detail is not that great. It looks more like 720p than 1080i. My selection of the V1U was because I wanted 1080P. When shooting in that mode, with enough light, each frame actually DOES look like a good quality digital still from a D-SLR with decent lenses.

I've noticed problems with the Z1U/FX1 footage, having purple fringes around contrasted objects that are backlit, but I've seen none of that with the V1U so far. Actually, the optics on this camera are too good for the imagers.

I shot 50 minutes of outdoor footage this afternoon at a park and I'm capturing it now. I was able to up the shutter speeds to 125-180 range and shoot 30P with various picture profiles to see how it all looks. I expect this footage will look quite nice.

I shot some footage last night under bright lights, of my wife's knick-knacks, and that footage was more like what I had hoped for. The trick is 20,000 lux or more and sharpness comes up and noise starts to almost disappear.

Mark, I'd have to disagree with you on the picture detail. In fact, it has every bit as much detail as the FX7/V1U or more. In my A/Bs with the FX7 & HV20, pointed at the same subjects, the HV20 showed every bit as much detail as the FX7. Now some people could be 'fooled' by Sony's infamous in-camera sharpening in to thinking the picture actually has more detail than it really does. This is why Sony has always used as much in-camera sharpening on most of their cameras as they have. It's that very sharpening though that causes artifacts that's been discussed on many forums. I've seen it many times and it drives me nuts. Once you see it, your eye automatically goes to it.

I'm not saying I see it all the time, but it's certainly there with things like wires or tree branches against a sky, fences etc. The Canon does not have nearly as much of this in-camera sharpening and seems to rely more on the higher density imager for detail. Many people suggest turning down the sharpness on the FX7/V1U to get rid of the artifacts, but the problem is that when you do that, you also get rid of the detail.

The clean picture together with the abundant detail gives the HV20 (to my eye) a picture that just looks more professional.

Ken, I agree with you as far as the FX1 is concerned. I passed on that camera for three reasons: Chromatic abberation, dark halos (oversharpening artifacts trying to make up for lack of real image resolving power) and no 1080P capability.

The V1U, for all its low light woes, does a commendable job in daylight. I was out at the park today, recording geese, foliage, flowers and my daughter. Two things stuck out: excellent fine detail in distant tree branches silhouetted against sky, and the tremendous dynamic range of the CMOS sensors. I could even shoot directly at the sun, and, with the foliage still in the frame, observe that both were reasonably well-exposed. Things like powerlines, and a wire sculpture of several horses, standing 9' tall, were rendered with crisp details and no oversharpening (false contour/halos). I did see a small amount of CA on brightly backlit tree branches, lit by white, puffy clouds on a sunny day. This would be a worse case situation.

The only area where I noted some problems was with dense foliage detail overloading the MPEG compressor and causing macroblocks to appear in the darker parts of conifer tree needles.

When I got home, I transferred the footage and captured many stills. Each still looked as good as what I captured from my digital still camera, which is no small feat. I was using 1/125th shutter speed, manual for the outing. The V1U lacks any of the in-camera oversharpening that earlier models took to extemes, such as the FX1. It does seem to offer real resolution, not fake 'simulated' sharpness.

While I agree that the HV20 footage is almost artifact-free, with the exception of posterized colors in some darker areas of white objects, it IS a much softer picture. And it is 1080i, being there's no 30P. I've tried shooting 24P but one either has to lock off the camera on a tripod or move almost imperceptibly to minimize judder. I do agree strongly that the HV20 is unquestionable a fantastic camera for under $1000. It's phenomenal in fact, and I hope that more pros start using it, so it puts pressure on Sony et al to make their semi-pro products much better. In the day and age, there is no excuse to require gain up and slow shudder speeds when shooting under 32 PAR flood lights indoors.

I've put up some sample footage shot with the HVR-V1U. And, as a bonus, I decided to put some comparison shots with the HV20. Still frames from both cameras reveal that the old addage, "you get what you pay for" is still true.

Sample footage and still captures can be viewed here:

http://www.basspig.com/hvrv1u_test_footage.htm

Nothing was done to any of the stills or footage. Everything is a raw capture, so the capabilities of each camera can clearly be judged.

Thanks Mark, this is great feedback.

As for capture from HDMI, I doubt that uncompressed capture is of any decisive value. Capturing to codecs like Cineform or Motion JPEG can be just as good (as far as I am concerned). The benefit is that RAID is not needed and a laptop can handle the data stream. I believe the Intensity card has MJPEG running in hardware.

I guess the net result is that for both HVR-V1U and XH-A1, it is better to bypass the hdv codec in order to get the best picture quality.

I think much of the difference between your observations and mine have to do with the fact of 'perceived sharpness'. That's a well known phenomena and can make one camera 'appear' to have more detail than the other. On the other hand, I camera that's very clean, and free of edge enhancement like the Canon, can appear 'softer' when in reality it's not. As I said I owned both and found detail essentially the same under many careful A/B testing sessions on a 50" HD screen. I actually boosted the in-camera sharpening one notch on the Canon which brings out even more detail. I was only able to do that because the artifacts are virtually non-existent. I also find the color of the Canon to be better, but that's largely subjective. But forgetting that, if you read reviews on the actual measured resolution of these cams, you'll find the following (horizontal X vertical resolution):

Sony FX7/VX1- 624X617
Canon HV10- 631X600
Canon HV20- 625X600

So you see, it's not my imagination. I've seen it on-screen and the actual measured numbers appear to confirm it. These cams are all in the same ballpark.

But with that said, I find both cams to be just 'so so' in low light. The HV20 has the edge when using 24p, but neither can even begin to approach my Sony VX2000/VX2100 cams.

P.S. I do agree with you that 'you get what you pay for', but in this case it doesn't apply to image quality but rather features. Obviously the V1/FX7 have many more features than the HV20/HV10. In fact many owners of the very well regarded Canon A1s and higher have bought the HV20 and acknowledge, under good lighting, there's virtually no difference between the two. In fact some have said the HV20 image is actually sharper.

OK, I just looked at your 'stills' from the HV20 and I have to ask you, did you put a vasoline filter on the camera? I have never ever seen such hideous frame grabs from that camera. It's very obvious the camera was not focused (which is an achievement given the incredible autofocus on the unit). I've used the HV20 since it came out and I've never gotten "VHS" looking shots like you did. There are tons of posted clips all over the internet from the HV20 and I don't think I've ever seen any that looked anywhere near as bad as yours. The closeup of the seagull did it for me. I stopped at that point. I say that because I was in Brooklyn on Mother's Day and was shoting seagulls. My video was razor-sharp, with every feather of the birds in sharp detail. So again, I don't know what or how you got those shots, but folks, they are not nearly indicative of the results from either the HV10 or HV20...not even close. If they were I would never have bought a VHS camera pretending to be an HDV cam. I'll bet any owner of the HV20 on AVS will look at those shots and scratch their head.

BTW, if you look at your V1U shot of the wires agains the sky, you'll see precisely the CA I was talking about. In fact I've often mentioned that it's precisely that kind of shot that brings out the CA in the Sony lens. The large Canons have even a greater problem with this.

Ken, my next objective will be to put some FX1 footage stills up there for a middle ground reference. I'd say that the FX1 has a similar resolving power to the HV20, based on what I saw.

The actual measured resolution of the V1U is 800 lines horizontal, an 1000 lines vertical. Reference that to a CineAlta which does 1100-1200 horizontal, 1000 vertical and you see that the HDV format really puts these cameras way behind pro levels.

The HV20 footage that I grabbed stills from was grabbed from several of the HV20 enthusiast sites around the web. I chose the sharpest frames (usually when the camera was the least in motion) by stepping a frame at a time and looking for the frame that was the most in focus and had the least motion blur. The footage came from several different owners/sites and should be a good representation of this camera's abilities in various hands and across various serial numbers. I'd say the image quality is consistent from one serial number to another, as captured.

I suspect that the CA is less visible when the chips aren't resolving that fine a detail. It may be there on the HV20, but the picture is too soft to bring it out.

My whole intent of this comparison was to show how bad the V1U is, and that a camera 1/4 the price could do as good or better, but when I started actually comparing images side by side, I began to see that my initial impressions from memory of how each looked was inaccurate. I was putting the page together as an exhibit which would accompany my letter to Sony, expressing my disappointment as to why a camera this expensive is not substantially better at making video than a consumer camera. I guess my argument won't fly now, as the evidence makes me look like a fool.

Mark, I really wish you had an XH-A1 so you could make a comparison test with HVR-V1. Maybe this way the dispute between the two cameras can be settled, if at all possible.

dr_bernie, I'll search the net for sample footage from the XH-A1 as well. I'm collecting a few different models' footage and will gradually add more samples and stills to the test page.
Actually, I was considering the XL-H1 for a while, but the 30F problem soured me on that model as well. But I'll be adding more video samples as I can find them. The scope of this page seems to be growing beyond my original intent, but it is also giving me and others the opportunity to learn more about the various offerings from various manufacturers.

Mark, I think your review and sample footages of HVR-V1 have been very detailed and very informative.

I have 1 question though: How do you rate the integration between Vegas and HVR-V1? I assume it is seamless, but I would like to know your opinion about it.

All I can say is that the video output from the HV20 is heads & shoulders above what you posted...not even close. This is why this camera is raved about all over the internet and it's why owners of far more expensive Canons have gotten the HV20 as a deck or B-roll camera. There's no way you could use the HV20 as a B-roll with the other Canons if its output were as bad as what you posted. In fact I know of nobody that would have kept an HDV camera that looked that bad. That's just a fact. Again, the measured resolution proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Same measurement techniques, same criteria used for both the HV20, HV10 and the FX7/VX1. These were not resolution tests I conducted, but rather on the CCI website. I'm not sure why your opinion runs so contrary to everyone elses experience as well as measured resolution results. Simply visit the dvinfo.net website and you can download tons of clips that truly make what you posted look like VHS. On that site you'll find a section dedicated to the HV10 & HV20. Many of those clips reflect precisely what I see with my HV20.

If you saw the output of the HV20 on my 50" plasma, you'd realize how tack sharp and ultra clean the HV20 actually is. Having owned both the FX7 & HV20 cams and after seeing the output of both, I decided to sell the Sony for the cleaner and equally sharp output of the HV20. The footage just looks more professional to me. I can tell you it more closely approximates what you see on some of the HD networks.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the FX7 and it was a great value for the money. But I'm using that camera primarily as a 'fun' HDV cam and I couldn't justify its size when the output from the small HV20 looked better.

Just as a sidenote Mark, all HD cameras, even professional megabuck cams, need lots of light. I'm not sure if you realize the huge amount of lumens that are thrown on sets like the Today Show or any of the network shows broadcast in HD. HD cams are just very hungry for light regardless of format or price.

However, with that said, the Canon A1 is much better in low light than the Sony HDV cams. I went for the FX7 at the time because I balked at the weight and size of the A1. Owning the VX2000 & VX2100, I was more accustomed to that size & weight camera and thus the FX7 was 'friendly territory'. But in the end, I couldn't even justify that size camera for the application I was using it in (fun) once I saw the output of the small Canons.

Per your earlier request, I looked for Canon XA-H1 footage, but only found XL-H1 footage, which should be an even better quality, so I added four new stills, showing lens geometry, CA, sharpness and dynamic range capabilities to my page:

http://www.basspig.com/hvrv1u_test_footage.htm


The V1U and Vegas 7e seem to be made for eachother. Integration is perfect.

I just have too slow a computer (4 year old Atlon XP CPU) to handle HDV.

My only complaints with Vegas stem from the fact that it won't send audio to the OHCI preview device! Picture only and no sound. Premiere Pro sends both. What was Sony thinking??

Here are two quick frame grabs that I just pulled from the video I mentioned I took in Brooklyn on Mother's Day. Although these don't even hint at the quality of the HD video from the HV20, you can see they look a lot better than what Mark posted. Unfortunately these had some motion in them as I was panning and would have been a lot sharper if I took this video with this end result in mind. However I wanted to show what Mark posted was far far from indicative of the HV20 output. To find anything that bad from the HV20 you really have to try hard. Interesting.

Ken, I tried to find the sample footage on DVinfo.net, but could not. Do you have a direct link to a piece of footage you consider "properly shot" with the HV20? Or, better yet, I'd be glad to capture some stills from a piece of footage that you shot with your HV20. That would settle any questions once and for all.

I've also added some stills captured from XL-H1 footage. It looks better than the HV20, but has CA almost to the center of the frame in medium light (no backlight) situations, and barrel distortion up the wazoo, and again, a softness to the picture. The zoom shot is really quite soft, which is what I noticed on the HV20. It seems that Canon lenses at max tele lose some sharpness.

I hear what you are saying about HDV needing a lot of light. It seems we are back in the 1980s as far as needing banks of lights to shoot in studio. I had 4000 watts of lights in my studio for shooting with Newvicon tube cameras in 1982. The cameras weren't that noisy in low light, but they lost detail and color in normal room lighting. The brilliant light was required in order to get a color picture that was somewhat detailed. I just felt that in an age when Sony can give us good color and no gain up 1/60th shooting in the VX/PD with normal fluorescent troffer lighting or with 10 75W PAR floods in a livingroom setting, that seven years later, their HDV offering would at least match that performance. Needing to drag along a lighting kit to every shoot is a throwback to the 1980s and the problems I had with finding enough power to run the lights, blown fuses, the show shutting down in the middle of the second number because my lighting system tripped their breaker, etc. to say nothing of needing a big truck to haul all that lighting equipment.

But my offer stands. Send me some footage you shot (try to keep the duration to a few seconds and under 50MB) and I'll capture some stills from it and put them in the HV20 stills section. Let's see what a competent shooter can get out of it that a normal user on full auto can't.

Ken, these two images are reduced to 1/2 size. Naturally they look sharper. Give me the full frame images, unretouched, with no contrast enhancement, sharpening or other processing done to them. Just a frame grab, raw.

Asked and answered my friend in my post right above yours. I had to resize them to allow AVS to handle it.

No, not just "HDV", any HD. That goes for professional megabuck HD rigs too.

Mark, I don't have the time to scour the DVinfo site, but trust me, spend a few minutes and you'll find plenty of footage. Better yet, simply go to the Canon website and you can download a nice sized clip shot with the HV10 (basically the same camera as the HV20). They have nice shots of Manhattan and other areas. And even with those shots, the HV20 can still produce sharper videos than those, since there's no need to resize them.

Then it's not a realistic comparison. These images have been run through PhotoShop Elements 3.0, are 1/4 the original number of pixels and therefore all the edges are closer together, creating a sense of greater sharpness.

The images, even at this size, do exhibit some CA. The seagull in particular, look at the dark object under the gull's tail feathers. Purple halo on the right side of the edge. Also, the lense is vignetting near the corners, worse on the right than the left.

From the EXIF data, these are still images taken in still image mode, not grabs from actual moving video, so again, still images are going to look better than video.

I would like to see an M2T file that you shot, where I can grab images from the actual video, since video is what we're evaluating here, not still image features.

Here's one more from the same tape. Quick & dirty.

I think the problem is a chip size issue. 1/2" or 2/3" chips should shoot HD with fine results. I'm waiting to get my hands on a Sony XDCam EX, to test it out in that arena.


DVinfo.net seems to have any footage well-hidden. There isn't a search query box where I can find it, and none of the articles seem to link to any. I must be missing something.

If you would like to share a short clip that you shot, and make it available to me, I would love to grab a frame or three from it and see how your footage differs from the footage other HV20 owners have posted on the net.

First there's no other way to get these on AVS. Sorry, but that's reality. Second, the CA you're seeing is nowhere near as bad as it is on the Sony cams. Had both and I know this for a fact. It was quite annoying and hit you over the head with the Sony. Your shots of the wire show far worse CA than the gull pix.

The bottom line is that I and a myriad of others know that the HV20 produces very sharp, very clean HD video. IMO it was unquestionably more professional looking than that of the FX7. I had both and have no axe to grind and no reason to favor either. For me there was no justification to the size and weight of the FX7 for my usage when the HV20 produced better video.

You also continue to disregard both user results, larger Canon owners opinions as well as the actual resolution measurements.

We shall agree to disagree.

The EXIF data points to this being a still mode shot re-saved in PhotoShop Elements 3.0, not a frame from video. Can you capture a 1920x1080 frame from the actual video in your NLE and post that? These 1/4 size images don't tell me anything useful for comparison.

I'm having trouble explaining to you that AVS will NOT accept file sizes that large. I tried and it simply will not accept it. The other thing is that I could care less about frame grabs, I watch moving video. Why is it Mark that I and many others have had no problem finding tons of stellar footage as well as great still grabs on the net from the HV20? You seemed to find the only grabs that are truly terrible.

BTW, even your grabs, once downsized, looked far softer than the ones I posted. Once the frame grab is fully loaded on my Explorer, it downsizes it. It still looks very soft. I also notice that you said in your post these grabs were from 'other sites', yet they are found on your site with no reference that they were not yours. How do you know for sure how they were captured? How do you know for sure how they were shot? Did the user have any idea what he was doing? This is not a scientific test Mark...far from it. In fact, it just occurred to me that the beach scene you posted was laughed at on the DVinfo site for being so bad and not indicative at all of what the HV20 is capable of.

I know that you and I have been around on this subject once before and you seemed to have a mission then to prove that only costlier equipment could produce 'professional' results. Times have changed Mark and your argument didn't fly then and doesn't fly now. The HV20 may not have the features of more expensive equipment, but it surely produces video as good as any HDV cam in good light....and better than most.

I beg to differ with you on the AVSforum posting of full sized images, as my earlier post of 1920x1080 images demonstrates here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10038971&&#post10038971

You can't compare images accurately when one is scaled down to 1/4 size which tends to average out CA artifacts into oblivion. Now let's see a full, unretouched frame or stop making statements that you won't provide visual evidence of.

I told you I got a prompt that CLEARLY stated that I could not upload a 1920X1080 file. OK, I'm done, this is really silly. You like your V1 and I'm happy for you. I just don't appreciate it when people don't accurately portray the output of other equipment. I don't like your website giving the reader the impression that YOU shot those videos & stills when in fact they were obtained from other sites. To me that totally negates your 'scientific' evaluation since you have no idea who shot the video you posted and if they knew what they were doing (they obviously didn't to have gotten such poor results).

I saw both cameras on my 50" HDTV and you can talk until your blue in the face Mark and you'll never convince me the output of the Sony is better. But I know I'll never convince you any more than you'll convince me.

As I said before, you and I have been around with this debate before and I'm not doing it again. The professional reviews, the websites, the owners and those that have compared the HV20 with far more expensive cameras seem to state something entirely different than you. Believe what you like.

Ken, first of all, I am NOT entirely happy with the V1U. The audio bass rolloff is absurdly lo-fi, and the indoor performance leaves a lot to be desired.

As for the outdoor images, I can only reach the conclusion that the posted footage found on the net is a reasonable average of what the consumer can expect from these respective cameras.

You accuse me of making an inaccurate comparison, when you yourself refuse (or make excuses not) to upload or make available full-sized video frames, not captures from the still camera feature of the HV20 that have been re-saved in PhotoShop Elements 3.0. As such, we can go no further in this discussion. Let's say we agree to disagree. (I sense that I've encountered one of the rabidly pro-Canon users here.)

Let's see Mark, I've got a total of four (4) camcorders, 3 Sonys (TRV900, VX2000 and VX2100). The other camcorder is the HV20. That's 3 out of 4 camcorders with the Sony nameplate. I had an FX7 which you seem to ignore just as you ignored the ACTUAL resolution numbers. The output from the Canon was better or I would have kept the Sony. You don't seem to grasp that either. I will not spend hours trying to convince you when there are many FAR better Canon clips out there. I invited you to go to the Canon site. You didn't. I invited you to visit the DVInfo site and actually search for the clips. You spent a few minutes and then 'gave up'. You seem quite determined to knock the Canon.

Yes, we shall agree to disagree...I sense we ahve a rabidly anti-Canon Sony proponent here....just as you were once before.

Mark,

I don't know that I would have linked that thread you listed.
You got hammered pretty good in that one.
I will give this to you, you are mixing it up pretty good for having just joined AVS two months ago.

Ken, those shots look great, resized or not!

It would be fun to have a shoot out with the two cameras and let a group of us decide which we preferred........

Thanks Blasst, but as any HV20 owner will tell you, it honestly only hints of the quality of the camera. The picture that Mark posted is so absurdly unindicative of the cam's output, it's really ridiculous. It's surely not perfect, no cam is, but I'll stack it's PQ against any HDV camera out there.

BTW, in the thread link he posted, notice that 'downsizing' is also Mark's issue there. Of course what Mark doesn't realize is that even when you downsize the picture he posted from whoever took that clip with the HV20, it still isn't nearly as sharp as what I posted. And trust me, I took no time to do that with no intention of making it look better than it was. But I think, as you saw, the picture speaks for itself. There are far better pix than what I posted from other HV20 owners who took more care than I did.

The important point I was trying to make is that independent reviews have posted the HV20's as well as the HV10's resolution as every bit as good as the FX7/V1. As I've said, I own many more Sonys than Canons, but my eyes tell me what they tell me. Both cams are very good, with the Sony having more features and adjustment parameters, but the Canon simply has a lower noise floor with the same resolution and, as a result, a more professional picture IMO.

Just for laughs, I took the HV20 Coast picture, rescaled it to the size of Ken's sample uploads and applied some sharpening to it, plus optimize the levels for more punch. Quite a difference, eh? I don't know what, if anything, was done to those images that Ken uploaded, but I was able to replicate the vibrant and dynamic quality with a little PhotoShop trickery before Dr. Shrinky had his way with it.

Blasst, I linked that thread as evidence that you CAN display images larger than 1/4 HD here on the forum.

Either way, I'm after the truth here, regardless of the subterfuge being thrown my way. If Ken is so confident in the HV20, then he'll post full resolution, unretouched frame captures from videotape, not still camera shots that have been possibly enhanced in PhotoShop Elements 3.0 and then reduced to 1/4 size to hide the evidence. (See my attached "enhanced" HV20 image.)

I'm looking forward to it. A totally uninhibited, ruthless, no mercy, no holds barred, anything goes kind of shootout between Canon HV20, Canon XH-A1 and Sony HVR-V1. And may the best camera win. The only rule is that the final verdict must be based on measurable, quantifiable criterias.

So let's see Mark, you had to apply sharpening and level adjustments to TRY to achieve the same effect as my pictures when all I did was RESIZE to fit the requirement of AVS attachments. Your picture is terrible, it's so obviously oversharpened in a lame attempt to achieve what my camera did naturally. I did zero sharpening and zero level adjustments. What you see is what I got. And you have the audacity to tell me that I'm throwing 'subterfuge' at you. Are you sure you're after the 'truth'? Talk about 'chutzpah'. Your the guy that posted a VHSish looking shot that was laughed at on another website, claiming this was the only clip you could find. I directed you to the Canon website so that you could download a clip from the HV10, essentially the same camera. You chose not to. I directed you to the website that has plenty of clips IF you bother looking.

I've got a bit of credibility here at AVS that's been earned over the years. I don't need someone like you to insinuate that I may have doctored these pix. My pix merely hint at the quality of the HV20. You are determined not to believe it and that's your problem. You ignore the actual resolution measurements time after time after time that were conducted elsewhere. That's your problem. Do you think those were doctored too?

Seems to me that you are out to prove the point that costlier translates to better in terms of image quality. You've done that before and were criticized by me and others for your erroneous 'conclusions'. You're doing the same thing again. I've gone through virtually every HDV camcorder on the market. Have you? I wound up with the one that I consider to have the best image quality. If there was one that cost twice what I paid for the HV20 and was in a convenient package, I'd buy that one and sell the HV20.

And once again, you simply are in denial that you can attach a 1920X1080 file in AVS. You can't. You will get a prompt that says the file is too large. Don't believe it? I could care less. Oh, and you website is also deceiving, giving the visitor the impression that YOU shot those clips as opposed to grabbing them somewhere else on the internet. When you post a clip or picture that is so obviously in contradiction to EVERY review and every owner's evaluation of picture quality, you truly must wonder what the motivation of the author is. Truth? I think not sir.

Ken, this is growing tiresome:

1. I already showed you a 1920x1080 image on this forum (linked to the topic earlier in this thread, so don't tell me it can't be done.)

2. I got the m2t footage from various owners of HV20 camcorders, not just one, but several different owers and several different serial numbers of HV20 cameras, so the picture quality isn't likely caused by one "defective" HV20, or one bad shooter. It would appear to be an average sampling of what the camera does under various conditions.

3. I never stated that I shot the HV20 footage. I provided stills from HV20 footage for reference.

4. My offer still stands. You can send me a short clip of your HV20 footage for me to grab still images from and I will include it in my comparison matrix. If you particular HV20 is so much better than the others out there, then here's your opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of your shooting skills.

5. I did not state that you doctored these photos. I stated that the EXIF data suggests that these photos were shot in still camera mode and that they were opened and re saved in PhotoShop Elements 3.0 (you can tell a lot with a HEX editor, looking at the byte header information). As such, I have no certainty that they were not manipulated. Also, a still mode camera frame is not the same quality as a frame captured from video footage. The files you posted were not saved with a video capture program and I dare say they are not from video, but from stills captured to memory stick.

The fact that you could easily make available some full sized HV20 frames, or even some footage (YouSendit.com ?) but refuse to is prima facia evidence that you have nothing better than what I've already posted to my site as HV20 frame grabs. I'm still waiting for those frames, if what you say is true.

I invested several hours hunting around DVInfo.net, looking for HV20 footage. I did manage to find quite a bit of XL-H1 footage, so I downloaded a bunch of samples and grabbed frames from that. I could find no sample footage on Canon's web site. Perhaps you know a secret URL you would not mind sharing with us?

At any rate, I don't care how many years you've been a member on this forum. Stopp waffling and come forth with unretouched frame captures instead of lip-service. Until then, your comments ring hollow, and it makes you look like a fool.

I e-mailed Douglas Spotted Eagle at VASST about the audio response issues with my V1U and his take on it was that this is not what his V1Us are like. He claims they are relatively flat from 50-16K. So it appears that mine may have some manufacture defect.

What I suspect happened is a decimal error in the value installed for DC blocking capacitors. Since the response is equally horrid in both channels, it appears that the problem may be an error in parts choice during a certain manufacture run. Ie., a design may call for a 10uF interstage coupling capacitor, but the assembler pulled a 0.1uF capacitor from the bin and installed that instead. A 100:1 error in capacitor size would produce this kind of gross error.

I've FAXed Sony Business Solutions & Systems Parts Support with the details, in the hope that they will forward it to the right department.

I suspect there are other V1Us near my serial number that also will have this problem. If you own one, and suspect the audio is a bit tinny, then you may need to have Sony look at it. There is a problem, most likely.

I have already stated my case. I don't like your insinuations (throwing 'subterfuge') and personally Basspig, I won't waste anymore time with you. The evidence is out there in independent REVIEWS. The evidence is out there in independent RESOLUTION TESTS. The evidence is out there in owner's reports, many of whom have had experience with far more expensive HDV cams and still claim the HV20 measures extremely well against them in good light. I had BOTH cams (FX7 & HV20), I tested BOTH cams side by side and the HV20 was equally detailed with less noise and less of those infamous Sony artifacts and 'in-camera sharpening'. The in-camera sharpening has been MUCH discussed on other forums and it is the biggest knock against the FX7/VX1. People are routinely dropping sharpness down to "3" or "4" to overcome these artifacts. I tried it but it made the cam's picture way too soft. You choose to ignore all of these facts...ALL OF THESE. So tell me Basspig, if the output is so 'soft' as you claim, is this one huge conspiracy? Nobody talks about it but you, now owners, not independent reviewers. Instead everyone mentions how tack sharp the picture is. Is it only you that knows the real 'truth'?

Your entire argument rests on a couple of absurdly soft grabs to 'prove' your point. One of these was widely laughed at on another forum some months ago because owners knew whoever took it apparently had no idea what he was doing. But I find it fascinating that you just can't seem to find any clips (I already directed you to Canon's website and the HV10 video that resides there...and yes, even that video is downsized but still looks great), but somehow you managed to find this one pix that's already been ridiculed. Fascinating. It's already obvious that my posted pictures are SHARPER without ANY tampering. Yes they were downsized and I told you why. You downsized yours, you sharpened yours and you played with levels and they STILL don't look as good as what I posted. You insist that I can upload a file that's 1920X1080, you can't. Let me repeat that: YOU CAN'T. Go in to the 'manage attachments' and try to upload a 1920X1080 file. You can't. However the bottom line is that you are simply deflecting the entire issue and pinning all of your claims on a frame grab. Anyone that knows video, knows how absurd that is. What I have already stated as evidence is far more complelling than some 'frame grab' from some unkonwn shooter somewhere in cyberspace. But you've got a mission Basspig. It's pretty clear you're not a Canon fan and that's fine, but don't misrepresent facts. Three of my four cams have the Sony name on them, so I can profess to being totally objective. I could care less who puts out the better picture, but whoever does gets my money.

So it is utterly pointless for me to carry this on any further. You've tried this 'posted pix' tact before and failed, you tried this tact with your innane "HD is no better than SD" ABC rant on the other thread. On that thread it was shown that YOU resized a 720p picture to a far larger size to make it look fuzzy. This is why I won't waste my time with you...you are intellectually dishonest. Your website is but another example. It's far different when you SAY that the clips your posting are shot by other people as opposed to making the person guess.

As far as the superb quality of the HV20 is concerned, there is a ton of evidence out there...right here on AVS as well as other forums if you choose to browse through the many HV20 threads. You don't. Your mind is made up and frankly people like you will never be convinced. So go on your merry way with your head buried in the sand. I'm done and welcome to my ignore list.

Nothing has to be proven to you. Also, don't insult forum members or you will be suspended.

BTW, you obviously didn't look hard enough on DVinfo.
There is a TON of raw HV20 footage. Seriously, just look in the HV20 forum. It's not that hard.

There is also much comparison footage as well.

I'm closing this now since this thread brings nothing useful to this forum, just bickering. You seem to be hunting for something that isn't there.

Kyser

PS- Posting this on your site is REALLY not proper.



You stole some of these shots yet you imply that they are yours and give no credit to the person who actually took the footage! Not that they would want it after what you did to it.

Everyone else can go here to see the true shot/footage.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wesvasher/440341317/in/set-72157600037408740/
PM me to avoid suspension.