The Great HD Shoot-Out - Canon HV20, Sony HDR-HC7, Panasonic HDC-SD1, JVC GZ-HD7by David Kender and John NeelyPublished on Apr 30, 2007 6:00 AM 
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At the heart of any good shoot-out is the performance. We’ll be looking at a combination our standardized testing, familiar to any of our regular readers, along with additional material. Bright light, low light, resolution charts, and hard numbers…we’ve got it all.
Outdoor Shooting, Part 1
Sunny Las Vegas provided a fitting backdrop for the shoot-out. Our first set up involved a person against a vivid, sun-lit background. To gauge each camcorder’s responses, we first put them in full auto mode, then shot the scene again after making some exposure and white balance adjustments.
Canon HV20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $903) – In full auto mode, the Canon HV20 had the best looking image. The skin tone on our model is clearly a little washed out, but the greens and browns in the background come out brilliantly. Overall, this is a great looking color balance. Despite the high contrast, there is almost no visible color fringing.
To correct, we used the outdoor white balance preset and lowered the EV. The skin tones took on a much healthier appearance, which any one in your shot would thank you for. Lowering the exposure also removed the slightly blow-out patches on the model’s arms. The trees maintained a lot of their detail, though where we could once see into the shadows, now the shadow has become impenetrable. The Canon HV20 does not have a tremendous dynamic range.
Sony HDR-HC7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1128.56) – This shot looks terrible in Easy mode. The white balance is skewed far too heavily into the blue, which ruined the skin tone, sidewalk, and tree trunk. The picture does not look as sharp as the Canon HV20, either, creating a distinctly (and unwanted) “video” look.
Adjusted to the Outdoor white balance preset, Sony again shows its penchant for extremes. Before it was too blue. Now it’s too warm. Overall, the picture is much better than in Easy mode, having lost that unnatural look. The dynamic range was nothing to brag about in this camcorder. In order keep that patch of sky in the background from blowing out, we had to lower the exposure considerably.
Panasonic HDC-SD1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99) – In auto mode, the SD1 had the second-best looking color balance. It’s certainly less saturated than the Canon, Sony, or JVC, which could prove a boon to shooters with a penchant for color correcting. The reduced resolution compared to the two HDV camcorders was obvious.
After adjusting white balance and exposure, the HDC-SD1’s image is as good or better than the color balance to the Canon HV20. This is definitely the most natural looking skin, a feat in itself, but the slightly more saturated greens in the Canon would likely be preferred by point-and-shooters. The fine detail does not compare to the Canon, and it about on par with the Sony HC7. All three camcorders trump the JVC GZ-HD7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1529).
JVC GZ-HD7 – Running exactly opposite of the Sony HC7, the JVC Everio GZ-HD7 erred too far into the red – much too far – in auto mode. Generally, manufacturers boost saturation on warmer colors to create better looking skin tones, but this goes too far. Suddenly midday looks like sunset. The compression artifacts are also prominent, reducing a lot of the fine detail. Noise furthered the problem.
After shifting to the outdoor white balance preset and lowering the exposure, the JVC-GZ-HD7 looks far better than in auto mode. But the image takes on a distinctly soft look compared to the other camcorders. The color balance is a touch warmer than Sony’s HC7, but the range of colors that Sony managed – including believable greens and browns – are absent in the JVC.
Outdoor Shooting, Part 2
The second shot was a close-up of our model. In this set-up, we made exposure and white balance adjustments to each camcorder.
Canon HV20 – The close-up shot of our model was a straight-up tie in color performance between the Canon HV20 and the Panasonic HDC-SD1. This is the skin tone that camcorder manufacturers like to brag about, warming it up just enough to be flattering, but not so far as to push the color balance too far. The fine detail, most evident in the “sole patch,” is unquestionably best in the Canon image (open up the full resolution images for a better side-by-side comparison).
Sony HDR-HC7 – Like the wide shot, the close up is a little warmer than we’d like. Of course, an experienced user could find ways around this, but you don’t always have a white balance card when you need one and the Easy mode already proved itself to be inadequate. A side-by-side of the full resolution image here shows the HC7’s inability to match the Canon for fine detail capture. Along with trees, a person’s hair can be one of the most difficult subjects for a camcorder to render successfully. The winner in this contest is clearly Canon.
Panasonic HDC-SD1 – The Panasonic SD1’s image looks fantastic here – at least in terms of color performance. The skin tone here is near-perfect. The AVCHD compression, however, shows pixelation along curved lines (look at the shadow of the sunglasses, for one example). It does not yet rival HDV, either in the Canon or the Sony.
JVC GZ-HD7 – Again, the image is warmer that it should be, but the fine detail capture is very good. Yet again, though, the image has a soft filter look to it, indicating that the imagers cannot provide the necessary resolution for quality HD.
Outdoor Shooting, Part 3
The third shot was two-parter, a tree blowing in the breeze against a blue sky, and a tree trunk against a strongly lit background. In this set-up, we made exposure adjustments to each camcorder. As any DP will tell you, shooting a tree is one of the fasted ways to see a video camera’s limitations. The layers of fine detail, the subtle back and forth motion in the wind, the bright colors and deep shadows – it’s a DP’s nightmare. So let’s see how these camcorders did.
Canon HV20 – There’s no getting around the fact that the Canon HV20 outputs an interlaced signal. It’s quite clear in this shot of the palm leaves. Anything moving horizontally produced the tell-tale jaggies. Much to Canon’s credit, the HV20 did an excellent job of staving off color fringing, even those places where it seemed near inevitable. There were some noise issue in dense, contrasty areas, but most of the image remained crisp and well-colored.
The widow-maker shot, the tree trunk against the blazingly bright sky, didn’t turn out as bad as we’d feared (though it shows all the flaws of HDV immediately). With the wind whipping around the palm fronds, they take on a ghostly appearance, disappearing in every other scan line. But the HV20 managed to reign in the color fringing to an admirable extent. The worst instance is a purple fringe along one frond and the right side of the trunk. There are also instances of haloing along the branches on the left side. Overall, the Canon underexposed the image, leaving too much in the dark. This was a tendency that we found several times during testing for the review.
Sony HDR-HC7 – The other HDV camcorder produced far more interlaced evidence than the HV20. The colors are less saturated than the Canon, which as we’ve stated before, will please some users and not others. The overall color balance is fine. However, the areas of dense contrasty information produced more noise. Despite these deficiencies, this first shot did not show any real color fringing.
The second shot was better exposed than the Canon HV20, producing healthier looking greens and browns. As with the Canon, the HDR-HC7 showed the same problematic interlace gaps endemic to HDV. The Sony, however, managed a better job at reducing color aberrations. There were equal amounts of ghosting along some of the branches.
Panasonic HDC-SD1 – As in the other test shots, the HDC-SD1 again showed a great color balance, placing itself almost directly between the Canon and Sony in terms of saturation and brightness. While AVCHD has several detrimental aspects, showing its interlace seams does not seem to be one of them. Unlike the two HDV camcorders, there is almost no evidence of jaggies caused by horizontal movement. Not that the image doesn’t have its own problems. AVCHD creates thick, blocky chunks of compression artifacts, evident in fine detail images like this. The SD1 was also not as sharp as either of the HDV camcorders.
Up until the tree trunk shot, the HDC-SD1 had managed to stave off the jaggies most of the time. Pushed to extremes, though, they made it clear that this, too, is an interlaced image that can have trouble resolving horizontal motion against a contrasty background. The resolution was so-so, and the color balance was decent, but there was one flaw that caused us pause. On the right hand side, where a patch of sunlight punched through between fronds, the camcorder goes haywire and creates a huge patch of ghosting and artifacting.
JVC GZ-HD7 – The JVC GZ-HD7 did a pretty good job with the first tree – no small feat. True, there is a lot of compression artifacting, but the level of detail looks good, and the color balance here is better than any of the previous shots.
In the tree trunk shot, the GZ-HD7 manages to avoid all interlace jaggies. This is perhaps due to the progressive imagers, despite the fact that the camcorder outputs an interlaced signal. The camcorder also shows the least amount of color fringing. Of course, it also has the least sharp image, which is a tough trade-off.
Outdoor Shooting, Part 4
The final shot was a flower bed, chosen to explore each camcorder’s color treatments and dynamic range. The brightly lit white flowers were our gauge for adjusting peak exposure. To the average eye, these images may look to dark, but to a pro, the important thing is to keep IRE levels within legal limits. Colors can always be corrected in post.
Canon HV20 – This shot brought out all the best aspects of the Canon HV20. We see here that Canon color that people speak about all the time. The still truly looks like a photograph. Of course, it’s not perfect. The image is still marred by interlace line along contrasty areas (i.e., where the purple flower meets the white flower). But overall, you probably couldn’t find a better looking image from a consumer camcorder.
Sony HDR-HC7 – The Sony image is very sharp, but again we see that unmistakable “video” look that turns off so many DPs. Compare this with the photo-like Canon HV20 and you’ll see what we mean. Perhaps it’s the higher sharpening, perhaps it’s the narrower color range – we’re not sure. But we just can’t find a reason to prefer this over the HV20.
Panasonic HDC-SD1 – Even in this low exposure, the color balance is again very good. All the colors pop here, and after correction they look absolutely spectacular. The artifacting here takes a toll on apparent sharpness. HDV is still preferable.
JVC GZ-HD7 – The GZ-HD7 produced the most saturated image in this shot. The resolution does not compare to the HDV camcorders, but it escapes the compression artifacts of AVCHD. As always, the image is noisy and a little soft. This can be corrected by increasing sharpening then running a noise reduction filter, but you’d be better off starting with a cleaner, sharper image.
We recently picked up JVC’s GZ-HD7, and it’s certainly a formidable competitor with a robust and well-implemented manual control suite, a healthy array of ports and terminals, and a satisfyingly balanced in-hand feel. But how does this new camcorder stack up to the other top-flight HD camcorders in the field? That’s a question that we’ll address in this shootout between JVC’s GZ-HD7, Canon’s HV20, Sony’s HDR-HC7, and Panasonic’s HDC-SD1. We found that each camcorder excels in certain areas of handling, manual control interface, and convenience. Our overall conclusions about the HD7 may well surprise you even more.
Low Light Performance
Low light testing is a standardized practice for all of our reviews, involving three parts. Shooting a DSC Labs CamAlign ChromaDuMonde color chip chart, we light the scene at an even 60 lux and 15 lux. For the third part, we lower the lights until the camcorder is producing 50 IRE, then take frame grabs from that footage and run them through Imatest imaging software for color accuracy, noise, saturation evaluation. All camcorders are in auto mode with a manual white balance adjustment. What’s discussed below is a summation of each camcorder’s performance. The full run-down can be read in their respective reviews.
Canon HV20 – In 1080/60i, the Canon HV20 and Sony HDR-HC7 had nearly identical low light performance. The sensitivity (ability to produce 50 IRE) for both was 7 lux, which is a very low light level. Color accuracy and saturation levels were similar. The Canon produced slightly less noise, which was evident by simple looking at the image. But the Canon HV20 became hands-down champion of low light by virtue of a simple trick: 24P. By switching the HV20 into 24P, the sensitivity more than doubled, dropping all the way down to 3 lux. What’s more, the color accuracy improved and the noise dropped. The ability to shoot in 24P is one of the strongest selling points of the HV20, and the results of this test prove how valuable that can be. Filmmakers should take note, however, that your project should probably be start-to-finish in either interlaced or progressive. The difference is jarring, even to the untrained eye. (Read more)
Sony HDR-HC7 – As stated above, the Sony HDR-HC7 was very good, thanks to its large sensor. It matched the Canon HV20 almost exactly in terms of sensitivity, noise, color accuracy, and saturation. Producing a decent image at 7 lux is no small feat for a consumer camcorder. We expect this to remain among the best performances of the year. Unfortunately, the HC7 was ultimately trumped by the HV20’s ability to record in 24P. The HC7 did not appear to perform as well as its predecessor, the HDR-HC3 (Review, Specs, $969.99), either. This is likely due to the fact that the camcorders share the same size imager, but the HC7 has a higher pixel count – cramming more pixels into the same amount of space. (Read more)
Panasonic HDC-SD1 – The three chips in the HDC-SD1 did the performances a favor in adequate light, but the relatively small size did not help its standing as a low light powerhouse. The SD1 was only about half as sensitive as the HDV camcorders. The heavy AVCHD compression compounded the issue by heaping on piles of artifacts. Then there was the noise. Because the SD1’s chips are on the small side, the camcorder compensated by boosting the gain, as high as +18dB. It doesn’t take much of a light drop off (about 40-50 lux) before that gain is boosted all the way up. Gain means noise, and there was a fair amount of it. (Read more)
JVC GZ-HD7 – The GZ-HD7 was the least sensitive of all four camcorders, producing 50 IRE at 17 lux. The biggest issue in low light with the GZ-HD7 is the noise. We saw plenty of it in bright light; in low light it becomes even more prominent. It’s a fat noise, too, not an easily ignored fine grain noise. We just couldn’t believe that a camcorder this expensive would be released with such obvious low light flaws. (Read more)
