I'm filming a Music Video for my Final Uni Project (BA Hons Digital Music) and I will be doing a lot of green-screen shooting. I've heard the Canon HV20 (HDV mini-dv tape) is good for this. But part of me would prefer a hard drive with drag and drop. So, HDV is basically Mpeg2, 1920x1080 compressed down to 1440×1080 (so that's lossy compression right there?) AVCHD is Mpeg4 and therefore can record true 1920x1080 (but apparently has artefacts and is not handled well by editors.) So I would have thought AVCHD is better (and I would like it to be) But I often hear there are more digital artefacts, and often only 12MBps whereas it could go up to 24MBps but the manufacturers aren't bothering to utilize it's potential I'm getting an 8 core Mac Pro (when the new ones hit in the new year) 4GB Ram, 3 or 4 HDs that will be running Final Cut Studio2. I've heard that video editors don't handle AVCHD too well, but would that Mac Pro really have a problem? I would like to edit in the original 1080 25p (PAL) without having to convert to SD. I'd like to hear the pros and cons and your experiences with the 2 formats. I'm swaying between the Canon HV20 (HDV Tape) and the Canon HG10 (Hard Drive AVCHD) Thanks
I'm in similar situation with AVCHD. My dad desires the latest Canon HG10 camcorder and wants to buy it before his trip abroad next month. But all the research I've done so far has been unsettling; disagreement whether it's a true 24p or only 60i, not really 1920x1080, difficulties editing with the few editors available (Nero, Vegas and ?Adobe?) unfriendly to transfer to other formats, unknown future of this new format, higher powered PC required to perform all this editing magic, DVD burning issues, etc. Are Canon and Sony AVCHD camcorders the next Beta format?? And what should I recommend my father buy for a camcorder that has alot of record time? (He's had back luck with the digital tapes camcorders mechanisms on several models.)
I've had great success with the HV20 using Magix Movie Edit Pro to edit. However, I have NOT done any green screen. The advantage of the tapes is that you can encode/capture in whatever format you desire without being tied into some relatively proprietary configuration.
I would recommend the HG10. Its Canon's first HDD AVCHD camcorder. A small camcorder packed with features that result in excellent HD video quality. here is a review: www.videomaker.com/r/119
As an employee of canonUSA up north, I would have to recommend the HF10 which is one of the new flash drive models. It will record in true 1920x1080 which the hg10 simply won't give you unless you stream directly from the hdmi port. Even though the spec for the HG10 says in is a 1920x1080 model the resolution when download from firewire will always be 1440x1080. I assume this is because the HG10's pixels are anamorphic and are larger then your traditional square pixels which means the pixels are rectangular instead of square giving you 1920x1080 size but still a 1440 resolution. I know its kind of difficult to take in PM me if you need a better explanation.
