Canon HV30 – HD Camcorder at its best
Canon is a known brand that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products. For years, they stood out by delivering remarkable quality products. Among those products, I would like to present the VIXIA HV30, aka the HV30. This is the main tool I use for recording great High Definition video. At a consumer level, it can’t get any better for the price. With some modifications, you can achieve unremarkable results that are comparable to prosumer and film like quality production. Obviously, this won’t be Spielberg’s camera of choice for his next big movie, but for most users, this camera can do a kickass job.
I won’t go in any in depth review, because this camera is widely known by a lot of people. If, on another hand you do want an in depth review, please visit camcorderinfo. They are a very good resource.
The HV series come in three flavours: HV20, HV30 and HV40. Physically, they look all alike, except for some button placement and the color (HV20 being silver). Technically, they all perform well with some minor updates. Canon had to add some new stuff to be able to sell the newer versions. Here are the main changes:
HV20: Silver color, films 24p (PF24) and 60i
HV30: Black color, films 24p (PF24), 30p (PF30) and 60i
HV40: Black color, 24p (Native), 24p (PF24), 30p (PF30) and 60i
Now, as you can see, the HV40 is the one with the most options. Unless you own the HV30, I would defiantly recommend buying the HV40. If you do some searching online, you can find it under 1k. The HV20 is the one I would recommend less, due to the fact that it cannot record 30P, in my case, my most used frame rate. There is a workaround for the HV20 to get 30P, but I won’t discuss it here. If you do need that information, please let me know.
The HV30 is what I use. Yes it can do 24P, but Canon didn’t make it as easy. There is a workflow that you will need to understand to be able to achieve 24P and edit it with your favourite video editing software. I will show you step by step instructions in a future post. This will also apply to the HV20.
On the other hand, the HV40 can record native 24P, meaning you will just need to capture and import your footage in your editing software. Nothing complicated!
Now, whatever HV camcorder you will be using, or any miniDV camcorder, you will need two things to start: a miniDV tape and an IEEE 1394 cable, aka FireWire, i.LINK or Lynx.
For the FireWire cable, just get a standard 6-circuit and 4-circuit FireWire 400 cable. They go for around 20$ Canadian. Be sure to have the FireWire connection on your computer. Most modern computers come with one.
The other important thing is miniDV. It is extremely important to buy a known brand and stick to it. The reason why this is so important is because manufacturers use different components for the tapes. Some use dry lubricant and others wet lubricant. On the long run, you can experience issues if you change brands. I use Sony tapes, because I trust this brand. Most tapes are dry, but Sony’s are wet. I can’t say for sure if dry is better than wet, but most manufacturers use dry lubricant. Interchanging different kind of tapes can cause clogging to the tape head.
As far as miniDV and miniDV HD, it mostly marketing. MiniDV HD costs about 3 times the miniDV tapes. They are exactly the same. Some say that the HD ones give less chance of drop frames. I never had any issues with the non HD tapes. On the other hand, I would recommend sticking with the 60 minute tapes. Tapes that offer longer recording time can cause issues with some cameras.
A small issue you might encounter with miniDV tapes, and that will happen more and more, is that they become less used in the industry. You will have a harder time finding them, because most consumer camcorders now record on different medium, like for example an internal hard drive. Don’t panic, you can always find tapes online on eBay, Amazon or any online store.
Shortly, I will post the 24P workflow, some frame rate testing, some tips & tricks and some addition equipment you can use to fully take advantage of your camcorder.
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Hi, thanks for the information, very straightforward and easy to understand. I am hoping to find if the HV30’s video can be imported and edited without a pulldown workflow that you mention with 24p. I’ve been looking for quite awhile, but can’t find anything substantial that mentions that specifically. I’m on a PC, using Premiere CS3 and CS4.
Thanks for the info and the page!
Rob Trujillo
@Rob Trujillo: Hi Rob. Unfortunately, the HV30 raps the 24p in a 60i container, so you must do the pulldown. You can read my workflow: http://astuff.net/2009/10/19/tipsandtricks/24p-workflow/
The HV40 is the only cam out of the HV series that does 24p without the need to do the pulldown.
You could also build yourself a capture station that would capture the video via HDMI. This would produce better picture quality and eliminate the pulldown.
I kinda stoped updating this blog, because I was publishing too much general info. I am starting a new one that emphasis only on video. It’s not up yet, but should be in a week.
Videtoolbox.net
I will be giving tutorials on After Effects, tips and trics on how to use specific equipments and info on things you can buy to fully take advantage of your camera (like a capture station).
Sorry i wasn’t more specific, your page does a great job of explaining the 24p part, i forgot to mention that i was wondering about 30p- is there a process that you have to go through in order to edit 30p footage from the HV30?
I’ll keep an eye for the page, sounds like it will be another great resource.
I didn’t know that you could capture via hdmi and not need a pulldown, thanks for that information.
Thanks so much,
Rob T.
@Rob Trujillo: 30p is the easiest to work with. You just import it to a 30p timeline and you are go to go. I mostly use 30p because it produces less motion blur than 24p and doesn’t have the “Realistic Look” of 60i.
You can capture via HDMI, but you need some pretty specific hardware in your computer. The trouble is well worth it if you do lots of green screen. Here is the card you would need: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/
If you can still wait about 3 months, I will be building one and will be explaining how to and what performance boost it gives.
Take care
Thanks again for the info, that helps me find out if i need the hv20 or the hv30 (hv 39 now, obviously). I’ll take a look at the card and keep an eye out for your guide about using it. Thanks!
@Rob Trujillo: Np.
If you have to buy a consumer camcorder go for the HV30 (cheaper) or HV40 (can be found for less than 1k).
If you are looking for something exceptionally good under 10k, I would suggest the Sony EX1 (6k). This is the best cam you can get that does not record on tape and has an incredible image quality. I used it in the past and love it.
Thanks, for the info. I’m going to go with the hv30 for now. Finding new clever ways of deinterlace without using premiere’s built-in shameful deinterlacer is taking too much time, it will be good to have a camera that shoots progressive natively without having another workflow to take time with. EX1 looks like a great system, a bit outside the budget for now. And I’ll keep an eye out for Videtoolbox.net.
Thanks!
Rob T.
@Rob Trujillo: Cool. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate.
I’ll posting on this blog once Videotoolbox.net is ready.
Take Care
Actually i do, have you synced HDV with other audio? Any sync problems? I shoot live music, anywhere from 4 to 16 cameras, audio off the board, mixed with ambients. So far no sync problems working with minidv, but i haven’t heard much on that with HDV, i’m hoping that means there aren’t any sync issues..
Thanks
Rob
@Rob Trujillo: I did have Sync audio issues, but I think it was bad tape or the fact that I import all the footage on 1 file. You can read here: http://astuff.net/2009/11/05/tipsandtricks/some-tips-tricks-for-adobe-premiere-pro-when-working-with-hdv/
Most of the time, I try to rec via Firewall on my macbook pro, this way I keep what I need and no tape is required.
On tape, you could have issues.
By the way, I read somewhere that dry tapes (Panasonic) are better than wet tapes (Sony).
Thanks, i read that link just now. On types of tapes, i read alot about problems people were having on their cameras when they used tape from different manufactures, i think each manufacturer makes tapes that work better in machines they make. There used to be issues with heads clogging when people used tape from different mfg.’s in their camera, but as far as i can tell, that’s not a problem anymore. I like tape because it’s a backup that i don’t have to take time to make, but i’m looking forward to when the manufacturers stop trying to control the market direction by not giving their HDV cameras the ability to record on sdcards/hard drives. I guess market wise, MiniDV is on the way out and they want to push AVCHD as much as they can because it will confuse everyone into buying more stuff, getting more support for it, etc.. I think HDV doesn’t hold as much revenue potential for them since it’s easier to work with..
Also, yes, dropped frames are a PITA when sync is an issue. But you can always cut the dropped frames out and resync the video, not really a problem unless there are more then a few.
@Rob Trujillo: I couldn’t agree more.
So are you saying it’s possible to capture from the hv30 to PP Cs4 via HDMI?
@Ryan C: Yes. You need an intensity card: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/ If you are capturing uncompressed footage, you will need a hard drive that can capture around 140MB/s, so you need a good Raid setup.
I will be creating myself a capturing station in a few weeks/months and I will review it on my new blog.
Oh yea, and you need lots of HDD space + a good CPU. Take a look at the min recommendation for hardware.
So is the quality far away better than capturing through fire wire?
@Ryan C: Firewire and miniDV is the same thing, image gets compressed. HDMI will bypass the DV compression. Will most people see the difference…no. Unless you present it in 1080p, it won’t make much of a difference for most. As for keying, that is a different story. Because you are getting less compression in the color spectrum, keying will be 100x easier.