Which camera Canon XL H1 or Panasonic HVX200?

[David S.]

The Panasonic shoot 24 progressive. 24 progressive gives a different look, but better than what?

Best quality image?

How is that assessed?

The Panasonic shoots DVCProHD, and the Canon uses mpeg2 compression.

HVX HD data rate is 100 mbps and the Canon is about 3.6 MB/s.

[Shane Ross]

The HVX shoots DVCPRO HD, which is a 4:2:2 colorspace, opposed to the Canon’s HDV 4:2:0 colorspace.

Both have 24 frame modes that shoot 23.98.

HDV is by far more compressed than DVCPRO HD. Both don’t shoot “true” HD, but what is TRUE HD? Viper Slipstream used on MIAMI VICE? Both don’t even come CLOSE to that.

24 frames a better look for….what? It is more film like, if that is what you are going for.

Shane

FCP Preferences set to UNCONTROLLED ADVICE
Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Steve West]

I replied to this same post in the Canon Forum- so I thought I’d give it equal time in the Panasonic forum

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I have a HVX200 and a Sony Z1- and I use a XL H1 on a regular basis- most of my work is commercial or corporate, and my pick is the XL H1.

On the XL, I shoot HDV, usually cine gamma, 30P (sometimes 24P, never mind your trick questions), downconvert to DV- edit on an Avid xpress HD with MOJO- and make component Betacam dubs for air, or a DVD for the corporate videos. This may change once the local stations start taking some sort of HD for local commercials or if some HD DVD format “takes hold”.

If I was shooting a movie, it might be different.

Part of my reasoning has to do with my workflow. Editing HD is a pain- even though I have an HP 8200, dual 3.4 gig xeon processors, 4 gig of Ram, and in the end- I’m sending out SD. Converting HDV or HD to SD after editing doesn’t seem to give me any better quality.

Why I like the XL-
-Better Lens

-Better image quality

-I like HDV as an acquisition format as opposed to full HD (and the 200 doesn’t have HDV)

-Clients like to see a “bigger camera” on the shoot- (say what you want, but it’s true)

Why I don’t like the 200

-P2 cards

-On my very first shoot- I had a corrupt file on the P2 card- I spent days trying to figure out why my file copy failed. In addition, the second card I shot, was only playing 1 track of audio in the Avid, even though the P2 player had both tracks.

-P2 card workflow takes longer than tape- record 30 minutes of DV to P2 card- copy P2 to laptop on location and Verify (10 minutes), make DL DVD, burn and verify (20 minutes), oh, and hire another person to do this, because I’m shooting. Copy DVD to Avid hard drives- (8 minutes). Use media tool to get the files and pray (a couple of minutes depending on prayer). Make a backup of the DVD, just in case (20 minutes)

-No HDV

-The “reds” look like crap

So why did I buy a 200? Actually it was for one job and it will probably end up on Ebay.

So, my preference is the XL, then the Z, then the 200.

These opinions are based on my workflow and experience, not on any “shoot out” or specs- If I was using DVCPro HD, then of course, I’d have to use the 200, but truthfully, If I needed DVC pro HD, I’d rent a Varicam so I didn’t have to deal with the P2 card issues.

[Uli Plank]

Having done extensive tests of the Sonys, the Canon H1, JVC HD100 and the Pana HVX200 (and then we bought one Pana and two Sonys), I dare to disagree:

– Yes, the Canon has the best resolution of the bunch and a decent pseudo-progressive mode (as opposed to the Sonys). BUT: IMHO the standard lens on it is far worse than the fixed one on the Panasonic.
– It has severe chromatic aberration
– Manual focusing is close to impossible, no reproduceable angle, no zoom plus focus, ‘jelly’-like reaction to operation of the focus ring
IMHO the Canon badly needs replacement of the standard lens, but at least here in Europe Canon is not giving you the option from the start, you need to buy both the bundled lens plus an expensive better one. Go figure the price point!

The Panasonic has the best electronic lens I ever had between my fingers, it’s coming as close to a true mechanic lens as I’ve touched yet (you can guess I learned my profession with traditional lenses).
– Best wide angle of the bunch
– Low chromatic aberration
– Clear relationship between angle and focus
– Focus while you zoom

And it can look quite impressive to the client with a professional matte/filter box with French flag, a follow-focus, a wireless sound transmitter plus a good shoulder rig…

The DVCPro HD format on P2 is far more robust than HDV on tape. A single dropout on HDV can ruin a full GOP (about half a second!). I’m sorry to hear that you had a P2 card go bad on you. We never made such an experience with our two 8 GB cards. Even our FireStore works very well since the latest firmware update. Download times via a PCMCIA card slot are far better than your numbers both on a Apple PowerBook and a PC laptop, better than realtime when we shoot native.
In Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 the support of the P2 format is excellent and the load on the machine from intra-frame DVCProHD is far less than HDV with it’s inter-frame compression, even my old PowerBook (non Intel) can handle it very well, while it would need hours to conform HDV.
It’s true, the HVX200 has a tad less resolution than the Canon, but when we screened a 35mm film transfer of our footage many (experienced cinema folks) in the screening room thought it originated on Super 16…

Regards,

Uli

Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.

[Stevenbradford]

We have the all three, the Canon, the Panasonic, and the JVC.

They all make a pretty picture. After that it depends on your method of working.
Each has features unique to it that might make you decide it’s the one for you.

What are you shooting? How are you editing?

The Lens on the Canon is not as good as the supposedly “SD” manual lens they’ve sold for awhile with the XL2. We did a comparison on charts and the chromatic aberations were pretty bad. We won’t be buying another one until it can be bought with the manual lens, or without the all auto lens.

That said, the canon has some very cool features that are useful to a lot of people. HD-SDI out. You could record direct to an HDCAM or DVCHDPro deck if you’d like. Or direct to a Mac with an HDSDI input card should you want to do true uncompressed recording. Also has TC in and out and camera control and shading ability over the firewire. This makes it a great low cost camera for sports and other multicamera situations.

Steven Bradford
School of Film, Video, Visual Effects
Collins College
Tempe Arizona

[Barry Green]

Absolutely agreed with everything Uli said.

For the Canon, if you really want to look at the Canon, give a look at the XHA1. It delivers XLH1-caliber footage but at $5,000 less. I still think the HVX is roughly twice the camera the Canon XHA1 is, and with the free 8GB card the HVX is a really compelling value. But at the XHA1’s price point, if you can live with HDV and giving up things like 720p, variable frame rates, 4:2:2 color, 4 channels of audio, and the superb colorimetry that Panasonic delivers, the XHA1 does deliver sharp 1080/24F footage at a very attractive price point ($3700 or so). I spent a week with an XHA1 side by side with the HVX; the HVX crushes the XHA1 as far as features and value and richness/texture of picture, but then again the HVX costs more, so it should. But unless you absolutely *need* HD-SDI, I don’t really see a compelling case for the XLH1 anymore, when the XHA1 delivers basically all the same goods at over $5,000 less.

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