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Here's a pretty nice review of the new consumer HDV from Canon - the HV20. This guy seems to know what he's talking about. And here's another YouTube video reviewing Canon HV20

This is a bit technical but does sort out the differences between DV and HD and how it applies to your videomaking. Excerpted from the VASST HDV training series for camcorders, you can purchase the full-length product Here This is quite a comprehensive series and normally you'd be paying for this information so it's great to have it on a YouTube clip.

I took the HDV camera down into the cellar to test the in-built mini-light. I used AUTO setting with Auto Focus. I compressed this footage with H264 Doublepass 25fps at a frame size of 320×180 (16:9 aspect ratio).

Why the CanonHV20? This is one of the newest consumer High Definition Video camcorders on the market - it was released a couple of months ago. I've bought one. Here's why -

• I has a Superb lens.

• It's easy to use.

• It is an HDV 16:9 aspect camera using 1920 × 1080i image size. 1,080 horizontal lines - twice the number of standard-definition TV with four times the pixels. Giving a stunning widescreen high definition image.

• It records on regular minidv tapes - which are still better than DVD or cards.

• It plays back on a High Definition television and looks amazing.

• It has Cine Mode to give your vids a "film look" (it softens the contrasts). You can further enhance it with the 25 Frames Per Second (fps) progressive frame rate. The only HDV consumer-level camera to do this.

• Bells and whistles - it has everything you need - optical stabilizer, sound levels, microphone & headphone jacks, built-in light etc

• The Price, man - how can you go past around $1000 for all this?

Don't just take my word for it. David Pogue of The New York Times had this to say about the CanonHV20 -

Best Camcorder: Canon HV20. This camcorder ($1,040) can record either standard video or high-definition video onto standard MiniDV tapes.

The HV20 has all the goodies of its predecessor, the HV10, like a dedicated autofocus sensor, built-in lens cap and an excellent optical stabilizer. (My review of the HV10 is available free at nytimes.com.) But the HV20 fixes the biggest disappointments of its predecessor: it adds microphone and headphone jacks, a top-loading tape compartment (so you don’t have to take it off the tripod), an HDMI jack (a single cable that carries both audio and video to your HDTV set), and a “24P” mode that offers incredible low-light sensitivity.

Here's some test footage I shot yesterday. I've taken it off "Auto" and fiddled around with the Aperture Priority settings. Even with the lousy YouTube Flash compression it still looks pretty good don't you think? The BlipTV Upload beneath looks even better.

Click To Play

Canon have a very nice Interactive Site which explains things clearly and simply.

Testing the CanonHV20 HDV camcorder using Aperture priority at f2.8 and f5.6. See how much better the BlipTV Flash file compression is?

Click To Play