Please compare other cameras to the HMC40 here, Thanks.

Here's a comparison of the HC1 at 0dB (top) with the HMC40 (bottom). I did this shot a little differently - rather than having the cameras set their exposure I fixed the HC1 at 0db, shot HMC clips at 0db, 3dB, 6dB and 9dB, and chose the closest match. Doing it this way, at this light intensity, the difference in sensitivity of the two cameras is less pronounced - the closest match would be with the HMC intermediate between 3dB and 6db. 6dB is what is shown here (bottom):

(EDIT: By the way, all the photos in all these posts have been shot with the cameras manually set to 1/60 shutter.)

HC1-0dB_HMC-6db.jpg
 
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The HC1 is noticeably softer on the sides. It shoots better at F4. It is sharper in the middle than the HMC40, or maybe just oversharpened, judging by the game box.
 
Yup, I find the HC1 is a little oversharpened. I always try to remember to crank its sharpness down a bit. Unfortuntely it resets itself if the camera isn't used for a while, and then I forget to reset it again.
 
Graham,

Thank you so much. This actually isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It still isn't where I would like it to be but what can I really expect for the price of the HMC40. I bought the HC1 when it first came out and paid more then what the HMC40 costs today.
 
Hi,
reading this thread, I'm in the same boat, HC1 owner, looking to upgrade to either the 40, 150, or now possibly the 550D.
Primary use for the upgrade would be for animal (cat) rescue videos, documentary, and some corporate work.
I'm guessing these stills are frame grabs as opposed to the camera's still function?
Any thoughts on how the 24p frame extraction on the 40 and 150 compares to the still capability of the 40 and the HC1?

I see I'm not the only one torn about getting rid of their HC1

thanks,
Gavin
 
Correct - my previous posts are framegrabs from video footage.

There are some threads somewhere here that discuss the quality of stills from the HMC40 - no-one seemed thrilled. I never bothered using stills from my HC1 ... my impression was that any decent >$100 still camera would do better.

I think the choice between an HC1 and an HMC40 comes down 95% to whether you want to leave taped-based workflow behind.

The choice of HMC40 vs. 550D is a lot more complicated and I can't really comment ... although if the cat documentaries involve run-and-gun I would be cautious with the DSLR route.
 
I agree about the DSLR for run and gun and I did read the HMC40 photo threads. For my purposes, I couldn't tell how much they were piling it on Carson style - it's so bad... I would be interested in seeing a side by side photo comparison of your HC1 and the HMC40 if that is possible. A neighbor's cat held by the scruff over a bucket...if you're feeling creative.

My thinking of the moment is along the lines of a 550D + HMC40 or a HMC150. Part of the appeal of the 40 is its shoot anywhere size and handle, but I'm obviously not shoving that into a pocket the way I can with the HC1.
So am I correct that in terms of image quality, there is not much difference between the HC1 and HMC40 in real world final image output - meaning the HMC40 is closer to the HC1 than the HMC150?

thanks, I appologise for thinking out loud.
 
I'm travelling presently - can post a HMC/HC1 still comparison in a day or two.

I have not used an HMC150 - my impression is that in good light the HMC40 will be slightly sharper, while in low light the HMC150 has several more stops sensitivity (partly compensated by nice clean gain on the HMC40). So yes the HMC40 is closer to the HC1 in size, handling, lack of wideangle lens, and similar low-light sensitivity.
 
Hi GrahmH,

I just got some footage back someone shot using my HC1 and on hooking it up to my 58' plasma, it still looks pretty good. I'd so gotten used to video being mangled by Youtube that I'd forgotten.

thanks for your help.
 
Here are some still-photo comparisons: the first two are reduced versions of the original scenes. The second two are pixel-for-pixel crops from each image (shot at 3984x2656 for the HMC40 and 1920x1440 for the HC1).

Edit: Keep in mind the HC1 has a pop-up flash. I disabled that for the indoors shot to better match the HMC40.

stills_outdoor.jpg



stills_indoor.jpg



stills_outdoor2.jpg



stills_indoor2.jpg
 
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Thank you so much. The top two were taken with the HMC40, correct? There really doesn't seem that much of difference.
This leads me to think the glass on the HC1 is superior to the HMC40 given the pixel/spec on paper advantage. And the HC1 can shoot acceptable stills and video at the same time. Hmmm.

Well, you've officially taken my HC1 off the ebay auction block and I really do thank you for that.
 
The HC1 is a great camera, despite its 5 year age. Its major drawback to me was that it could not record progressive.
 
I just got an HMC40. I also have access to Canon HV30. Are there any specific tests folks would like to see?

What is the best way I can post comparison footage? If I export to H.264 will that be good enough?
 
GrahamH said:
Well PDR, you are exactly right. The Canon chroma interlace bug is eliminated with correct decoding, and seems to depend mainly on the host application (in my case HDlink). When I opened my 30P clips using Avisynth/VDub the bug is eliminated, regardless of which decoder I'm calling (Ffdshow, Microsoft or Mainconcept). It has been a learning experience, and Win7DSfilters is a good find.
Click to expand...
Hello, gentlemen!

PDR, Graham, could you please elaborate on result of decoding depending "mainly on the host application" and on Win7SDFilter. If one uses Win7, is it possible to achieve correct decoding by using HDLink or Procoder host application?
 
Hi CDV, If you use the avisynth/Vdub method you can convert your avchd clip to a Cineform-codec avi that is the equivalent of what HDLink would have produced, but without the chroma-interlace problem. In other words, you would be by-passing HDLink for the conversion step.

I don't know of a way to get HDLink itself to do the conversion correctly - a post I made asking about this on the Cineform forum got zero response. (I think many folks believe the problem is inherent to the camera, and haven't gotten their heads around the software aspect).

And I'm not sure if Procoder avoids the bug - if I get time I'll check and report back.
 
Procoder does have the same bug, or maybe it uses the same Windows decoder that has a bug. I am trying to remove pulldown from Canon PF AVCHD footage, but cannot make this Avisynth script work. Every other two frames show interlacing. I don't know what is wrong, maybe I am not using the correct decoder. Could someone point to simple instructions "for dummies" how to achieve clean pulldown removal? I do have Avid drivers, I do not have Cineform codec anymore, my trial period has expired.
 
Cranky said:
Graham, thanks a lot for your tests, I expected the HMC40 to be at least as sensitive as the HC1, but it seems that CMOS technology has not developed as fast in the last five years to cover jump in resolution (8MPix on the HMC40) and drop in sensor size (1/4-inch on the HMC40 vs. 1/3-inch on the HC1).
Click to expand...

That's not the right comparison. The HC1 is certainly based on a single 1/3" CMOS chip at full 1920x1080 resolution.... I have an HVR-A1, the fancy version. They did such a nice job on the HC1, it was clearly too good for the consumer market, and it was replaced a few dozen times. The HVR-A1 is still on the market, new.

Anyway, the HMC40 (which I also own) isn't 8Mpixel, it's 3 x 3mpixel, sensor-wise... or, three 1920x1080 captures. The relevant point here is that you're getting the effect of a 1/4" sensor capturing all of the light that enters the camera, verus a 1/3" sensor capturing 1/3 of the light (the filtering on the sensor's Bayer pattern cuts 2/3 of the light gong to each sensor site). A typical 1/3" sensor has about 1.78x the surface area of a typical 1/4" sensor... so the HMC40 should be seeing more light per pixel.


Ben Amato said:
On the other hand, NR on the HMC40 seems to work quite well, the image does not seem to have less detail than on the HC1. So, for real life conditions, the HMC40 seems as usable as the HC1, or even better.
Click to expand...

You're a bit disadvantaged on the HC1, comparing detail, since the HC1 is going to take that nice 1920x1080 and downsample to 1440x1080 before writing it to tape. And, given the single sensor, you still have to deal with the color fringing inherent in Bayer interpolation.

Its curious that Sony, Canon, and JVC solve this color issue in their modern cameras by going to more pixels... 4 effective Mpixels on the Sonys (they have this weird 45-degree oriented sensors, and interpolate to 8Mpixel, then downrez to 2), 6 on the Canons, 8 on some of the JVCs. But this, of course, also shrinks the relative size of the photo sites, and the sensors haven't been getting dramatically larger. Maybe Panasonic's idea was the right approach after all.

My practical experience is that the HC1/A1 compares pretty well to modern cameras, until it doesn't... it seems to hit the wall just a bit sooner than my HMC40 or the new TM700. There really is a wall... on one side, yeah, maybe a little bit of noise, but it's not noticable to the untrained eye. On the other side, it's unacceptable. In fact, on this very PC, I'm in the 22nd of about 25 hours of rendering, cleaning up the noise as well as possible from some video I shot with the HVR-A1 last month, where this very thing happened. Two cameras I thought well enough matched, but a huge difference in the result.
 
moviememe said:
I'm guessing these stills are frame grabs as opposed to the camera's still function?
Any thoughts on how the 24p frame extraction on the 40 and 150 compares to the still capability of the 40 and the HC1?
Click to expand...

Stills on the HC1 are not much different than frame captures. I was fairly skeptical of the HMC40's still photo mode, since, after all, it is using three 3Mpixel sensors, not one large one, despite the 10Mpixel output. But it's not too shabby... I did this comparison, including as well an older DSLR and an 8Mpixel sensor video camera as well. Also includes the TM700... see http://www.frogpondmedia.com/ptest
 
moviememe said:
Thank you so much. The top two were taken with the HMC40, correct? There really doesn't seem that much of difference.
This leads me to think the glass on the HC1 is superior to the HMC40 given the pixel/spec on paper advantage.
Click to expand...

Do keep in mind that there shouldn't be any real pixel advantage... they're interpolating three 3 Mpixel sensors to deliver a 10Mpixel photo option. But that's kind of black magic. There's some value in the interpolation, simply because you're talking about 14-bit/pixel values for each sensor site. And while this is the right way to do video, it's not the same as a 9 Mpixel sensor for stills. See the above comparison I did recently (link).

moviememe said:
And the HC1 can shoot acceptable stills and video at the same time.
Click to expand...
I guess that's a matter of opinion... I never found the HC1/A1, or for that matter, many early HD models, to deliver acceptable stills. But I didn't really care, either, since I have plenty of still cameras.

moviememe said:
Well, you've officially taken my HC1 off the ebay auction block and I really do thank you for that.
Click to expand...

I'm probably going to put my HVR-A1 system up for sale in the near future. This was driven a little out of a few marginal shoots compared to other cameras, but largely just because I'm so over tape, and found the tapeless solutions are ready for prime time, at least for me. Of course, I've been playing around with tapeless for over two years, and only recently decided that AVC encoding and editing was a reasonable option. My first AVCHD camera, the Hitach BD-70, went on eBay last year. I actually liked the Blu-Ray media, but the video quality was poor, and the AVCHD algorithms not ready back then. Today, they're excellent.
 
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