Canon HV20/30 1980vs 1440

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:52 pm

Hmmm... Thanks for the information. But I am still puzzled about the camera happily playing back exported edited videos which are in the 1440x1080 format. Then again, that is what you say the tape originally records from the sensors... Hmmm again. Good food for thought!

I would also be most interested in how you do the 'HDMI live capture' you mention... Haven't heard that one before and it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the HV20 manual. But I am always happy to learn, particularly if it might possibly improve quality. (Mind you, I am still raving about the excellent quality I get anyway!!

)

EDIT: Subsequent to the above, I plugged my HV20 into my HDTV via HDMI. My HDTV has 'true' HD capability (1920x1080p). Moreover, it also gives a read-out of the format of an input source when it is first connected. And indeed it said that the camera was a full 1920x1080 source. It did the same when I put the camera in REC mode instead of PLAY.

But why would Canon "cripple" its output? Is it because the HDV standard was only 1440x1080? (I must sound like a newbie!

But I will also Google for possible answers...)

neonbob · Post by **neonbob** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:02 pm

Well... as I said, the HV series cam does have a 1920x1080 cmos sensor, but because firewire has a limitation of 1440, then what is actually recorded is 1440. The HDMI output of the cam is capable of reading from the tape (1440x1080) or live capture to your hard drive directly from the cmos sensor (which is 1920x1080). You can accomplish this with the Black Magic Intensity card, but you need a fast computer and BIG drives (what you capture is FULLY uncompressed)

In fact BMI just released some new drivers for the card (they were having problems capturing from the HV20.

Here's a thread from DVinfo.net (they seemed to have resolved the issues and people are capturing at 1920x1080)

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.p ... +intensity

neonbob · Post by **neonbob** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:17 pm

Ken Berry wrote:
But why would Canon "cripple" its output? Is it because the HDV standard was only 1440x1080? (I must sound like a newbie! But I will also Google for possible answers...)

I don't think it has much to do with "crippling" the HV20. The fact is that there simply is not a whole lot of difference (visually) between 1440 and 1920.... but more to the point, it's a tape based cam and you have to get the info off the tape somehow.... and as mentioned above you can't squeeze more than 1440x1080 through firewire.... it's firewire's limitation.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:20 pm

Ah, so it was the Firewire standard which imposed the 1440 horizontal limit on the HDV standard... rather than simply a decision taken by the HDV developers several years ago based on 'older' HD technology then available...

Ian Sharpe · Post by **Ian Sharpe** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:33 am

Very handy info, many thanks mate for this.

Ian Sharpe · Post by **Ian Sharpe** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:35 pm

Ken,

I downloaded a trial of Cyber link Power Producer 7. I had tried this product years ago, & I remember it fell over all the time.

ANyway this ver seems OK, & can wtite back to HDV.

So I tried it with the same footage that was falling over in VS & it ALMSOT worked, much much better than VS , by that I mean being able to record back to HDV tape, BUT I did get 2 small dropouts about a sec each. Still not good enough for me to buy it.

It really does look like Canon has a probelm here, I'm very dissapointed about this but I guess I should have researched a bit more, eh.

ANyway I'm on the Cyberlink froum now asking if any of those guys have tried this

cheers