New Canon camcorders announced at CES

At CES, Canon announced 4 new HD camcorders on Jan 07. The Vixia HV30, successor to the popular HV20 HDV camcorder, retains 24P mode but adds 30P and a better LCD screen. It's now a sleek black and is available in Feb 08.

As flash memory gains in capacity, Canon has 2 new flash memory camcorders utilizing SDHC cards. The HF10 has a built-in 16GB recording capacity and a SDHC slot for further capacity expansion. The 3.3 mp CMOS 1920x1080 HD sensor records AVCHD and sports a 12x optical zoom.

The HF100 is virtually the same camera as the HF10 but sans the internal 16GB memory. It relies on flash cards for capacity.

The new Vivia HF line adds an important codec improvement. The FXP 1920x1080 HD recording is an improved 17mbps vs the normal 14mbps of other AVCHD camcorders. This added bandwidth can only help with picture quality. The new codec is probably going to take some time before being supported directly by the popular NLE. Both HF series will be available in Mar 08.

I read about these the other day ( amazon had them up on their site for pre-order before announcement ) and looks really cool. Thought about you since you often mention the CF/SD type cameras as the wave of the future and I started wondering if Gates is going to have a housing for it when I saw it. ( The camera also looks very small. )

On one of the sites I was looking around at it was mentioned that Canon is hyping it improved in it seperating/processing R,G,B a certain way, with a specific reference that thought it is not a 3 CCD , this makes it closer. May be puffery but I will like to see the tests.

Yes, I'm eager to see tests too. There is little info yet on the manual controls for the cameras, and of course nothing on housings. I like the extra 2x of zoom the vixia line has over the hv20, but lowlight performance, manual controls, and of course picture quality will be the deciding factors for me.

Hawk

The HV30 is still 10x zoom. It is the only HDV of the bunch and the only real difference is the 30P, Instant AF from the XH series and improved LCD on paper. There probably are some DSP changes in the Digic DV II for noise. Instant AF requires the AF sensor to be exposed to the subject, so housing manufacturers will have to make allowances for it or just kill it.

AVCHD at 14mbps has block and resolution issues... Let's wait for the tests on the FXP before we judge.