Canon XH-A2/XH-G2

J

Jay Mills

Member
I've been a Canon user for years and I'm looking to purchase a new HD camera that allows me to shoot full 1080p at 24 fps. Does anyone know when the next series of Canon HD cameras will be released? Also, does anyone know if they will have this feature? Thanks!
 
The XH A1 already lets you shoot at native 24fps with its 24f mode. The only catch is that the XH A1 has interlaced sensors, so it has to do a little offsetting to get 24p. In the end, you get 1080/24p, with a little bit of resolution loss, but that's hardly noticeable.
 
Not to my knowledge. I've searched to see if there was a next generation, too, but it seems Canon, as with most users, is content with what it offers...for now. Maybe NAB or CES 2009?
 
nothing has been announced yet. and probably will not be for some time. as Aroon said NAB or CES 2009 is your best bet.
 
i've owned l1/l2, xl1/xl1s... canon has always been secretive about upcoming releases.

i think that it won't be long until you see a new flagship canon model, because they are going to lose a lot of sales to this new panasonic that's coming out in october.
 
You won't see an updated A1 or G1 until the XL-H1 gets updated to an H2 first. The H2 will get the big upgrade and then 9-12 months later those upgrades will trickle down to the A2/G2.

That's my opinion based on Canon's history and current roadmap.

The big question is what will the H2 upgrade contain? Will they answer Sony with a 3-chip CMOS? Will they offer 1/2" chips? Will 1/2" chips make their current lenses unusable and require a whole new series of lenses? Will they switch to an AVC file based system?
 
canon has a history of doing "upgrades" that don't really amount to much, or as we've seen recently, even taking away mission-critical items like 4-channel audio.

i need long glass, which is the only reason that i'm waiting around to see if canon dumps hdv on the h2.

i'd like to see somebody make a solid case for buying canon over the panasonic hmc150, because i don't see it.
 
OSV said:
canon has a history of doing "upgrades" that don't really amount to much, or as we've seen recently, even taking away mission-critical items like 4-channel audio.

i need long glass, which is the only reason that i'm waiting around to see if canon dumps hdv on the h2.

i'd like to see somebody make a solid case for buying canon over the panasonic hmc150, because i don't see it.
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Well I have alway been happy with my Canons (currently have an XL H1S).

You should definitely buy based on your individual needs, and not what anyone "thinks" is better. For me, the reasons for the new XL model range from embedded HD-SDI for the recording to the AJA IO HD, removable lens for the P+S Technik I'm renting, variable peaking and B&W functions that translate to the onboard LCD for both the 1st AC and myself, etc.

This camera seems best as I can outfit it for shooting that can have amazing quality for our final film out. Of course, this setup costs many many times more than the HMC150, but for this particular feature and budget, it is justified.
 
OSV said:
i need long glass, which is the only reason that i'm waiting around to see if canon dumps hdv on the h2.
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I think the old standby advice probably applies: if you need it now get it and if you don't, wait. If you need to work on projects and/or generate income right now, then by all means the Canon will do the trick. If you can wait for the next gen units then sit tight.

OSV said:
i'd like to see somebody make a solid case for buying canon over the panasonic hmc150, because i don't see it.
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I'd say that if you insist on having archived footage, the XH series combined with a hard drive/solid state recorder would be a good choice. If you've got a reliable workflow for HDV that might not handle AVCHD very well, that could be a factor. Someone might prefer the handling on the Canon. Price? Zoom? I don't know, the 150 seems like a great cam, I'm certainly not going to argue against it :) If I was buying right now, I'd probably put it at the top of my list. But already owning an XH-A1 myself, I don't think I see enough there to make me go through the whole hassle of switching over. Now Scarlet... I'll have to wait and see ;)
 
OSV said:
i'd like to see somebody make a solid case for buying canon over the panasonic hmc150, because i don't see it.
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There are several very compelling reasons, all of it having to do with AVCHD. If you think editing HDV is hard, wait until you try AVCHD, especially since most of the major NLE still doesn't support it. Having to go through lengthy conversion periods when capturing the footage is not all that different from tape, and that will be the situation until the software starts to catch up.

The second reason is a growing trend that worries me: the newer cameras tend to NOT allow you to shoot SD. This is huge for event shooters. If you're shooting a wedding, 90% of your client will expect an SD DVD. Imaging having to edit 2+ hours of AVCHD only to have to down-rezz to SD at the end. Yea, that's a nightmare.

And I disagree that Canon's upgrade history "doesn't amount to much." Most of the people using the XL2 never needed 4 channels audio. In fact, few people needed both of the channels that the camera actually has! Remember that they were the first to introduce an affordable consumer camera with 24p, and as far as I know, if you need a 24p HD camera for less than $1k, there is no other alternative BUT Canon. And the XL2 came out with 24p and XLR input which was a HUGE step up from the XL1s. What I will say though is that Canon doesn't price their camera appropriately. The A1 was a huge success because apparently somebody at Canon was listening and actually came out with a camera with 24 progressive mode at 1080p resolution for $3k. They haven't done that with the XL2 or the XLH1 and doesn't seem like they will be doing that with the H1a and H1s. Things can always change.
 
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Huy Vu said:
And I disagree that Canon's upgrade history "doesn't amount to much." Most of the people using the XL2 never needed 4 channels audio. In fact, few people needed both of the channels that the camera actually has!
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i sure needed it on the xl1s! i use 4 channels on practically every shoot... and i have the factory canon xlr adapter on that camera as well, so it wasn't an upgrade for me on the xl2.

but the fact that canon dropped 4 channel audio seems to prove your point.

i have zero need for 24fps... it sucks for video work, you can't pan or zoom well with it... i never understood why a film standard that's decades old would be an attractive option on a video camera.

Jay Rodriguez said:
Huy Vu, wouldn't you want to shoot in HD and down rez to SD just for the quality improvement?
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exactly what i was thinking... it's just another encoding job, run it overnight and your done... i'm guessing that he probably doesn't have a computer that will handle it... 4 cores is advisable for native avchd, with software that is capable of utilizing it.

the testing i've done so far indicates that transcoding it to the canopus intermediary codec could be the way to go for now.
 
Jay Rodriguez said:
Huy Vu, wouldn't you want to shoot in HD and down rez to SD just for the quality improvement?
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Sure, I do that all the time, but when there are hours and hours of footage it just becomes extremely difficult to edit.

OSV, it's very different to take a few hours of footage and pare it down to a few minutes than when your actual project is several hours long, it places way more of a strain on the computer and the NLE. I do have a quad-core computer with Cineform codec, and it takes a lot longer when I'm working with longer duration project. Not to mention I have to manually shrink the HD result in a timeline to down-rezz it, which is another step that I don't need. The A1 already shoots excellent SD that is quick to render and easy to edit, which is what has kept me from moving on to the HMC except as a second camera.
 
the old sd delivery format still haunts us all, it's not going anywhere.

i hadn't really thought about it in terms of a long timeline, but that makes me nervous, because my dvds are typically a couple of hours long... i'm not sure what you mean by shrinking the hd result in the timeline? it sounds like you are going to sd before the edit is finalized.

fwiw, the bitrate for avchd is the same as it is for dv, so avchd native editing is not impacting the hard drives much more than it would if you were editing dv.

that is still a better situation than it was back in the mid '90's, when we had to buy expensive scsi drive chains to edit hi8 in the mjpeg codec... when dv hit the scene, the drives were quicker, but companies still had to release special standalone software players, so that you could play dv files on your computer, without using the editing hardware card.

avchd is a re-hash of the same problem that we've had for the last 15 years... pcs not keeping up with the video technology.
 
I actually have a gut feeling that Canon will drop the H1 line altogether.

Looking at the market I wonder if Canon simply isn't selling enough H1 cameras to justify the enormous R&D effort to maintain parity with Panny and Sony?

The question is whether or not Canon will replace the XL format with something entirely new or just switch it's focus on the markets it's currently dominating (handycams and pro-toy cameras like the A1).
 
I agree. If Canon were to introduce a new format, they would create a new line. The XH A1 could have been the GL3, but instead they spun it off into a whole new line. If we see any new codecs from Canon (probably AVCHD to compete with the 150, just the A1 competed with Sony HDV cams), it will probably be in a whole new product line.
Hopefully with these hypothetical new product lines, Canon will create something that competes with the likes of the EX1 and HVX.

My $.02.
 
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