Canon Unveils New Prosumer HDV Line: XH G1 and XH A1

I am impressed.. i almost was thinking Canon was gonna go hide for awhile.. but this camera seems like it may become one of the best HDV cameras out there.. on paper it performs better than the H1.
 
I think these are great cameras, especially as "B" cameras. You need long run times if you've got this sealed up in an underwater housing or a crash box or rigged up in some remote location so HDV makes sense. Try doing that with P2. The lens is also really nice. Good ol' Canon glass and it's just as wide an the HVX but 50% more telephoto! We still have to find out how the zoom/focus/iris rings feel but Jesus it's got an iris ring!

You could shoot almost anything with this camera: indie filmmaking, ENG, event, wildlife, weddings, whatever. And it really only cost $4K because not that many people will need the $7K G1 model which only adds SDI, Genlock and TC.

I don't know why anyone would buy a DVX now with this camera only being $500 more. It also makes buying an HVX pretty hard too. The damn thing is $2000 less and that's not counting P2 media cost! That's pretty persuasive to me. I can really see this camera becoming the "B" camera workhorse like how the PD150's were.
 
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Well... the DVX still has 24 progressive frames... this camera does not. And, we still need to see the color and latitude that this camera is capable of as well.
 
dustino said:
Too bad canon can't get true 24p. I find it both amazing and bizarre. I want to be a canon fan, really I do. They make great glass and I love almost everything they do in their still camera line. So what's up with the 24p? Why are they overlooking such an enormous factor in image quality?
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I think it has something to do with licensing. They only fork over for their expensive models.

Am i wrong? I heard that somewhere...
 
24P on the XL2 or other Canon camcorders isn't true 24P. The CCDs, even on the XLH1, are interlaced CCDs and progressive images must be interpolated from two interlaced fields.

While there is technically no direct licensing requirement in terms of patents/copyrights, etc.. for someone to produce a 24p/24FPS camera, it seems that most manufacturers are paying royalties to 24P, LLC. A "company" that holds the patent on acquiring 24 progressive frames per second from a digital imaging device, in order to replicate the appearance of film. Robert Faber, who holds the patent, is nothing more than a bully and it is outright extortion that he collects royalties for such a patent as it is very vague and extremely all-encompassing. Faber actually chased down Sony several years ago when they started shipping some of their intial 24p capable HD cameras and Sony lost (actually settled out of court). All licensing of 24P from Faber is handled confidentially on an individual basis and several cases have supposedly bordered on blackmail and illegal activity and they all involve a patent that should never have been granted in the first place. When Faber applied for his patent in '92, it was hardly an original idea then and various camera makers were already talking about such cameras and were playing with prototypes. It's almost as bad as the early '90s patent application by the Pizza Hut Corporation to patent their stuffed-crust pizza... A novelty of many pizza kitchens world-wide that has been around for at least a few hundred years. Perhaps I should go apply for a patent on 300FPS acquisition via a digital imaging system and then whenever upcoming digital cameras capable of 12.5X slow-mo arrive (240FPS digital are right around the corner), I can start collecting money for every slow-mo shot in every major motion picture.

Check out this link to a blurb at studiodaily.

Anyway, all that this shows is that Canon is developing or even preparing to release a 24P capable camera. Beyond that, I don't think anyone really knows what Canon is up to and they're very good at keeping quiet about their new products. It could be a new 720p consumer HDV camera or a 1080p pro camera, or anything in between. 24P and variable-rate progressive technology from 24P,LLC is currently used in just about every progressive-scan camera out there, including the Varicam, HVX200, DVX100, etc.. It's a small license, and could mean a lot of things, but it shows that Canon is taking a step towards a camera that has true progressive frame shooting abilities.
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got this from somewhere so people don't think i'm an idiot and just making things up :)
 
Barry_Green said:
It's not that they're overlooking it; remember they put 24p on the XL2.
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I didn't know the XL2 had true 24p. Back when we had the "other cameras" forums, I remeber someone posting some images from the XL2 that was supposedly in progressive mode, but they were nasty interlaced. Perhaps that user didn't know what he/she was posting. All this time I've been dismissing the XL2 unnecessarily...

Bottom line, I would SERIOUSLY consider the cheaper version of this camera tomorrow if it had true 24p.
 
Brandon Rice said:
Well... the DVX still has 24 progressive frames... this camera does not. And, we still need to see the color and latitude that this camera is capable of as well.
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Does it matter if by the time you put it into your NLE the results are the same? Here is an explanation of the 24F mode by Chris Hurd:

"The Canon 30F and 24F frame rates and the technology which creates them are related in no way whatsoever to the current Sony HDV implementations known as CineFrame 30 and CineFrame 24 (which have been commonly referred to as CF30 and CF24). Instead, the Canon 30F and 24F frame rates constitute a "new and improved" version of Frame Movie mode, based on a technology originally developed by Panasonic and adapted by Canon in 1997 for the first XL series DV camcorder, the XL1. This updated version of Frame Movie mode is nearly identical to the 30P and 24P results produced by progressive scan CCDs. The Canon XL H1 CCD block is interlace, not progressive, therefore the 30fps and 24fps frame rates cannot be referred to technically as 30P and 24P. However, 30F and 24F from the XL H1 appear almost indistinguishable from 30P and 24P, as they are basically the same results as progressive scan, but produced by different means. When the XL H1 is set to Frame recording, the CCDs are actually clocked at 24 frames per second. The video signal remains at 24fps as it is passed from the CCD block to the baseband LSI, and through the HD Codec LSI. Only when it reaches the recording output stage is it resampled to 60i via a 3:2 pull-up method."

The rest of the article is here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxlh1/articles/article06.php

I say cheers to Canon if they are able to bypass that guy's patent and still achieve the same results. Also, I suspect there are engineering problems such as heat issues with reading the information off full rez native progressive scan 1440 x 1080 1/3" chips so that's why no one uses them and why Panasonic uses lower rez chips and JVC had problems with their 1280 x 720 chips.
 
Those are some sexy looking cams. Although the LCD mounting looks weak. Depending on image quality, I can see the A1 being a huge contender in the market. Does anyone have an example of 24f footage next to 24p footage?
 
Am I the only one seeing the striking resemblance to the Sony Fx1/Z1? Look at the mic... look at the viewfinder..
 
its teh exact same chipset as the XLH!, so it latitude and Dynamic range should be identical, say unless the lens REALLLLLY sucks. which i doubt it will.

End of the day, Its HDV. No good for me, i cant trust an acquisition format that is the same as a Cable TV broadcast format.
 
Very interesting. It's funny that the form factor of all these cameras is incestuous.

It looks like a DVX, mated with a GL2, producing the bastard offspring named FX1, who illegitimately sired a child with Z1, the brother of FX1, who ran off with uncle HVX... :evil:
 
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