Austin posted his tests (440 MB) comparing the 1 year old HDV HV20 vs the 6 months old AVCHD HG10 and brand new AVCHD HF10. The new HF10 can record full 1080p at its highest quality mode at 17 mbps, compared to just 1440×1080 of the previous Canon consumer camcorders. Note that the HV30 is exactly the same as the HV20 in quality.

According to the tests, the HG10 is visibly worse than any of the other two camcorders (it has this “mushy” cheap Kodak look), while the HV20 still beats the new kid on the block HF10! The HV20/30 is slightly more detailed and has less pixelation than the HF10 (plus, it has a much more compatible 43mm filter thread and bigger sensor that allows for more background blur). The HF10 has visible mpeg4 artifacts (much more than HV20’s mpeg2), but on the other hand it seems to have less fringing than the HV20.

Anyhow, the AVCHD cameras are obviously closing in to the HV20/30. Regardless, we are still one more year behind before a consumer AVCHD camera is able to beat it. That’s how good that camcorder is (no wonder it still sells like hotcakes for less than $700 these days). The rein of HV20 will end for good when manufacturers are able to offer full AVCHD bitrate to their full 1080p streams (24 mbps, according to the standard). So far, this has not been possible for many reasons: you hit the FAT filesize limit faster, you need an even faster PC to edit, and it requires really fast media and internal chipset. When these roadblocks are out of the way (1-2 more years), AVCHD camcorders will shine in their full glory.

One aspect that many videographers ignore many times, is lighting. Lighting and sound is more important than being able to “record in 24p” during the quest for that movie look. Look at the video here. This video is a behind-the-scenes look at the shooting of a music video clip. An expensive film camera was used to shoot the actual music video. But a Panasonic HD digital camera (presumably the HVX-200) was used to shoot the behind the scenes documentary video. Check the shots where the Panasonic camera shoots the “documentary” part, and the shots that the same camera is pointing to the singer at the time of the actual music video shooting. Notice the difference in lighting, as when shooting is taking place, there are some big reflectors set there by the crew. Notice how more of the “movie look” you get at these specific scenes, than the normal documentary scenes, which looks like normal video. And yet, it’s the same camera. It’s all about lighting.

“Rainy Day” is now the most “liked” HD “true” video on Vimeo. The first one in that list is a timelapse made out of digital pictures rather than a real video. As far as I am concerned, when shooting video with the limitations and difficulties this encompasses, no one has made anything better than this video, after 9 months since it got released. I expect “Rainy Day” to surpass all videos in that list anyway, as it still gets over 200 page views per day…

To me, this is the benchmark to beat.

Vegetation shots around the quiet ‘Palace of Fine Arts’ in San Francisco. My JBQ poses in the opening shot of the video. I experimented a bit with HV20’s DOF. HD version here.

Details from one of the finest bridges on Earth, the Golden Gate Bridge. HD version here.

Panasonic thought it was April and NAB time today, and so they had a bunch of press releases. Among them was their new high-end prosumer/indie camera, the HMC150. This is a pretty nifty camera, an upgrade over the HVX-200, which was the indie filmmaker’s darling so far. This camera uses 3CCD 1/3″, which creates as much background blur as the HV20. Not very much that is. On the other hand, it records full HD at 30p and 24p, and also native 720p and 1080/60i. It’s expected to cost $6000.

The most interesting point here is that Panasonic goes AVCHD and the tapes are a thing of the past. I did fully expect that all prosumer cameras will be AVCHD for this next generation. I now expect Sony’s and Canon’s announcements to also be AVCHD-based.

The AG-HMC150 sounds sweet with its 3.5″ LCD screen, but two things really bug me to the point that I want to throw this camera to the head of its product manager:

1. No internal (swappable?) hard drive in addition to its SDHC card slot. This makes the camera even more expensive, and honestly, not as convenient as Panasonic would like us to think it is. Panasonic is a big flash manufacturer, so they want us to buy, buy, buy SD cards. Freaking douche bags.

2. According to the press release, it uses 13 mbps for 1080/60i (1440×1080). This is not enough. We’ve seen that res/bitrate on many other cameras and quality was not even better than the HV20 which is a $700 camera nowadays. Panasonic should give at least 18 mbps to 1080/60i and 24 mbps (full AVCHD spec) to 1080/24p/30p (1920×1080).

And 1080/60p would have been nice too, at around 40 mbps (even if they had to go over the AVCHD spec). But I understand that it might be a bit early for 1080/60p (the next big version of Blu-ray will support that, but that’d be in years from now).

But honestly, these two points above, are really stinky. I can’t wait to see what Canon has to offer for their next-gen prosumer line. I have $3000 to spend.