New Canon Pro HD Camcorders Announced: XF300 & XF305

[Bassman2003]

1. codec codec codec. long gop mpeg2 is hard to edit and not very effective, especially if if you want to do some post processing. Ok, 50 mbits is enough for most situations, but it's still hardly editable and lags even on 8 core FCP machines.

Tomas, this is not my experience at all. I use Edius on a PC along with a Nanoflash which is often set at 50mbps.

I can edit a 1080p clip along with adding filters like sharpen and color correction from the CF card in a USB reader in realtime.

To put it bluntly, this material edits like DV on my i7 920 $200 processor.

And yes, 50mbps 4;2:2 is plenty for pretty much all situations an $8,000 video camera will come across.

The codec is one of the strongest points of this camera.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

To put it bluntly, this material edits like DV on my i7 920 $200 processor.

Jog/shuttle is not as responsive compared to an intraframe format though. Searching for a frame or decoding backwards is sluggish because there is lots of interframe decoding that needs to be performed. Resuming playback is far slower also. Practical enough, it plays fine, but it can't really compare to the instant response of editing intraframe (which decodes just one frame instead of a GOP series). And that can't compare to the reponse of uncompressed which simply passes the data (no decoding).

 

[Tomas Riuka]

Edius is a nice piece of software for sure, it does indeed work with mpeg2 well, not like fcp or adobe premiere.

 

[xmephestox]

cs5 will run everything... even vob files (mpeg 2) direct from DVDS.

 

[Mattsan]

cs5 will run everything... even vob files (mpeg 2) direct from DVDS.

Going off topic - but that is sooo laughable if you have Edius - cos you've been able to do this for years in realtime on an average pc!

Edius can now Edit Native AVCHD in realtime FULL REZ without frame drop with no special hardware etc etc

 

[NEEL]

Some XF300 testfootage for download and playing with in NLE's:

http://www.videoaktiv.de/Testvideos/Canon/Testvideo-Canon-XF-300/305.html

 

[Sectaguy]

I didn't read the text. What where the conditions for this test?

 

[cowpunk52]

Here's a bunch of real-world videos shot with pre-production XF305's:

http://vimeo.com/11465396
http://vimeo.com/11368787
http://vimeo.com/11356876
http://vimeo.com/11355117
http://vimeo.com/10618906

 

[Huy Vu]

http://vimeo.com/11465396
http://vimeo.com/11368787
http://vimeo.com/11356876
http://vimeo.com/11355117
http://vimeo.com/10618906

Canon really need to get this camera into the hand of some professionals. These are such amateurishly shot and a lot of it doesn't even seemed to be focused properly.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

The rolling shutter looks a lot better than the competition.

 

[xqzt]

The first vid was edited within alot of its panning and zooming, makes me wonder. The low light test off the rock video looked horrific, and tough to tell online maybe but looked like a little nasty IR problem with brownish blacks. It was a good example when compared with the HDSLR blacks. Just a first response of course. Thanks for the collection of vids.

 

[cowpunk52]

French review of Canon XF305 compared with Sony EX1/EX3: Canon XF305 XF300 test Repaire

Translation by Google: Canon XF305 test

"Conclusion.
The camera not have been long in hands, but it surprised us on several occasions.
First, long and very good optics. It reclassifies the camera squarely above the EX1/EX3 in terms of resolving power and chromatic aberration.
Combined with a good signal to noise ratio and a recording format of first quality, we can count on it to produce prodigious images.
Its only weak point is its nominal sensitivity slightly below Sony EX."

 

[dcloud]

well that happens when you have too much photosites.. sharpness = lower light

 

[cowpunk52]

Canon xf305 test

Translation by Google: Canon XF305 test

Shooting in complex light conditions.
Against the sun:

Background of subtle gradations:

Wide angle - coverage from the foreground to the far:

Shooting at telephoto:

Chromatic aberration tests
Wires at the maximum telephoto:

upscaled:

Clock at the maximum telephoto

upscaled:

Window at the maximum telephoto

upscaled:

High resolution chart (followed by upscaling)

upscaled:

clear circles without aliasing artifacts:

color resolution:

Analysis of the color table by vectorscope:

Another color table:

 

[dcloud]

looks like a really solid video cam. looks really sharp and great!
I think the EX1 has an edge here though with the lowlight sensitivity & lower price

 

[Otis Grapsas]

The alias performance in the 1:1 pixel crop is fantastic. Much better than the Sonys at its price range.

The 1:1 pixel crop of the test chart looks strange. The vertical resolution is only 500 lines or so. Could be a mistake because the alias chart looks a lot sharper.

1080p instead of 450p stills would be nice.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

There are shots at all gain settings on dvinfo. Gain Test XF 305 native.

The older CCD model should be a lot more sensitive. Don't compare at the same db setting.

 

[drdimento]

wow, this looks like the camera to "must have!"

 

[cowpunk52]

looks like a really solid video cam. looks really sharp and great!
I think the EX1 has an edge here though with the lowlight sensitivity & lower price

I think the EX1 will have an advantage in low-light (early reports indicate about 1/2 stop to 1 stop difference) & price. However, it's increasingly looking like the Canon has the edge in far more areas over the EX1: dynamic range, color, codec, resolution, lens, ergonomics, build quality, zoom range & LCD.

I'm really interested to see how the Canon's perform in real-world environments once released.

 

[Otis Grapsas]

The new Canons are not cheaper than the Panasonic HPX300 series. They are both 1/3" full HD, 4:2:2, but the Panasonic has 100mbit/sec intraframe compression and it's a shoulder mount camera.