| Rating |
Review |
Date Reviewed |
- Product Rating:
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- Pros: HD, Great Manual Controls for the look of the image, sharp LCD.
- Cons: Default controls need to be manipulated to get better image quality.
- The Bottom Line: This camera almost has it all for an all-around camera. It's size is adequate for handheld, LCD is sharp and adjustable, and manual controls are everywhere for complete control. The image out of the box is great in HD, but for SD you might want to adjust the default picture controls to your specifications or to other cameras. Also make sure you manipulate the image quality if you are shooting at night or under dim lighting -default controls will jump to very dark to noisy bright images if you just use Shutter and Aperture and Gain. Overall it is a great Video Camera.
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by markandrew,
14-Apr-08
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- Product Rating:
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- Pros: This camera has a 20X zoom which is great for what I use it for (Outdoor Filming). It is light and has all the setting adjustments you could ask for.
- Cons: With all the buttons and setting adjustments it could get very complicated. Study your manual hard!
- The Bottom Line: Overall it is an awesome camera. The quality of the footage I have taken so far is top notch. Being in the outdoor industry I believe this camera is the best out there for the price! I would definitely buy it again!
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by TroyGentry,
24-Mar-08
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- Product Rating:
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- Pros: crystal picture
- Cons: None
- The Bottom Line: This camcorder is the best camera i ever gotton. It has alot of high-tech stuff on it and it is pretty light for a big camera. Also the lens are really good.
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by yeongheo,
21-Mar-08
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- Product Rating:
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- Pros: =Price for pro=Great lens=3 CCD=HD=Customization settings=Mic inputs: phantom power, line level and mic level=Handle on the top for low angle shots=Recording controls on side and top
- Cons: =Large for travel.=Software time split did not work.=Captures at 1440x1080; not the full 1920x1080.=Stores video MPEG2 while AVCHD may be better.
- The Bottom Line: The Canon XH A1 is a beautiful camera and one of the best prices for professional features. It has a great lens, 3 CCD, and HD recording capability. The camera provides many more customization settings than I may ever use. I was afraid of the size, but it does not feel as big as the measurements. However, fitting it in a box for transportation requires something rather large. The handle on the top is nice for shooting low angle shots, and recording controls are provided on side and top for easy access. Another good thing is that the microphone is farther away from the moving parts, so it should not pick up as much noise as other smaller cameras. For me, the mic inputs are a significant professional feature. The mic inputs allow me to hook up to many auditorium sound systems. The mic inputs can provide phantom power as well as line level and mic level inputs. Everything has a switch, and each switch feels different for adjustments in the dark. However, I wish I could assign one mic input to both left and right channels without having to do editing on the computer afterwards. (Maybe there is a way.) Software support for HD cameras is still evolving, but there are several choices, from $70 VideoStudio to $600 Premiere. I was unhappy that the time split functions do not seem to work for this camera in Premiere Pro 2 and Ulead VideoStudio 11 plus. I did verify below that timecode does come across in some of the streams. A key point for me is to know that I can archive and edit the entire original video. Video looses quality every time it is rendered or converted to another format, even rendering from MPEG2 to MPEG2. For this reason, it is best to get digital copies, and to always keep your original master content. I also want to keep the original content because my mini-DV tapes contain timecode information in the stream. Using timecode, I can split scenes and rename clips to the original time and date. If something gets saved wrong, you can still pull out the date and time for each frame. The HDV video does not save in AVI like my standard mini-DV camera, so I can't use programs like DVDate to split or rename the files. The HD video gets saved in MPEG by every program I've tried. But the timecode information is saved in some of the MPEG files. I learned that HD MPEG is saved differently using different programs. Premiere Pro 2 saves HD MPEG as Transport Streams (TS), which is encoded for easier transport and error recovery. Ulead VideoStudio saves as Program Streams (PS), which is encoded for better storage. They can both contain the same video data, just stored in different blocks. I can not find details of the video recording stream provided by the Canon XH A1, like whether it stores video in TS or PS, or how timecode is stored. I verified that the timecode is available in the firewire download, but I am still researching which stream format is better for keeping my precious memories. If you're looking for something smaller but lacking the 3 CCD quality, I was seriously considering the Canon HV20, the JVC GZ-HD7U, and the Sony HDR-SR7. The HD7U can capture at full 1920x1080 while the professional XH A1 only captures at 1440x1080. Another point to consider is that the newer cameras store video in AVC or AVCHD format. Supposedly, this is a newer compression format that may retain more quality in the video storage. The Canon XH A1 stores in older MPEG2, but I'm not sure if I could tell the difference. Both MPEG2 and AVCHD are lossy formats, which are necessary to store so much video data onto small tapes and drives. I have not done enough tests to tell the difference between the 3 CCD imaging, but it should be better. The Canon XH A1 camera video did look very nice when I hooked it up to my HD TV. Unfortunately, the prices are still too high for me to start recording to Blu-Ray or HD DVD. For now, I'm saving the original content on computer discs, and rendering the video out to standard DVD's for watching. I can hook the camera up to the HD TV directly. When prices drop, I'll make nice new discs in HD quality.
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by johnhaz,
31-Jan-08
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- Product Rating:
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- Pros: Dependable white balance on full auto mode; Great Picture quality, great in doors under natural and low-light situations. Low Noise.
- Cons: Could be shoulder mountable for added stability.
- The Bottom Line: Great Camera... Great Picture... Could make the ND filtering automatic... Being hand held, it lacks the stability of a shoulder mounted cam... Fast Focusing, and lens. Controlls are many, and a little confusing at first, but if you are used to canon products, you will catch on fast.
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by rbert16000,
11-May-07
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