The Little HD Shoot-out: Canon TX1 and Sanyo VPC-HD2by David KenderPublished on Jun 28, 2007 9:26 AM 
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Video Performance
Controlled Testing
In order to kick off the video performance shootout, we brought the Canon TX1 (Specs, Recent News, $424.15) into our testing room for the standard bright light shooting. We use a DSC Labs CamAlign ChromaDuMonde color chip chart, lighting it at an even 3000 lux. We leave most of the settings in auto mode, including exposure. The white balance is manually set, normally. We found, however, that the Canon TX1’s tungsten white balance preset was incredible accurate. Canon’s large array of WB presets can be thanked for that. The simple indoor/outdoor settings that Sony and other manufacturers offer simply don’t cut it.
The Canon TX1’s bright light video shows a highly saturated color palette. Generally, people associate strong colors with good color, when they should actually be looking for accurate color. There was also evidence of significant oversharpening, which is meant to trick the eye into making a sharper looking image than the camera can actually resolve. As a result, there was often haloing around areas of high contrast.
We’re pleased to report that the Canon TX1 does look better than the average standard definition camcorder in certain regards under these very controlled lighting conditions. The fine detail capture is much better than a low-end DVD camcorder. We’d clock it somewhere between a high-end DVD camcorder and an HDV camcorder.
Holding it up against the Canon HV20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $903) really put the TX1 in its place. The HV20, which shoots in 1440 x 1080 HDV (outputting to 1920 x 1080) had vastly superior sharpness and color performance, without oversharpening or oversaturating to a significant degree. Of course, it also offers 24P recording and retails for about twice as much, so they’re not really in the same league.
The Canon TX1 also offers a series of one-touch color corrections called “My Colors.” A similar, more limited set of controls are found on most Canon camcorders. We found the Neutral setting to offer a more pleasing and accurate color performance, overall. It more closely matched the HV20’s color rendering. Unless you’re shooting something where the colors need to “pop,” we recommend keeping the Neutral setting handy.
The Vivid setting produces colors that could actually do eye damage if viewed for too long. There should be some find of FDA approval for that feature.
The Sanyo VPC-HD2 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $585.36) already made its way through the wringer and received a full review earlier this year. We’ll summarize here. The HD2 made significant improvements in image quality from its predecessor, the VPC-HD1 (Review, Specs, $499.99). First, off the HD2’s auto exposure produced a much darker image under the 3000 lux lighting than the Canon TX1, though this did not prove to be the case in outdoor testing. Color performance was very similar to the TX1 when the exposures matched. The VPC-HD2 produced a tremendous amount of oversharpening. To call the side effect of this process haloing would be an understatement. It actually looks like someone took a white marker and drew a border around all the black objects.
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Canon TX1 crop at 100% |
Sanyo VPC-HD2 crop at 100% |
The Sanyo produced a fair amount of noise, considering the more than adequate lighting. Some of it can be chalked up to compression artifacts. All of this was of a small grain. The Canon TX1’s noise didn’t show itself until later testing. We’ll get to that in a minute.
Again, for comparison’s sake, we held the HD2 against leading consumer HD camcorders to get a sense of the field. Sanyo did not hold up favorably. The Canon HV20, Sony HDR-HC7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1128.56), Panasonic HDC-SD1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99), and JVC GZ-HD7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1529) (all of which battled it out in the Great HD Shootout) all rolled over the Sanyo HD2 with ease. These are, of course, camcorders with little appeal as a hybrid device, but they represent the best that the market has to offer right now. Neither the HD2 nor the Canon TX1 can hack it against these heavyweights.
Outdoor Shooting
When we took the Canon TX1 and Sanyo VPC-HD2 outside, a great many revelations (and limitations) revealed themselves. The big news is that the Canon TX1 has a very difficult time with motion. As the image below reveals, the TX1 has a tendency to produce ghostly duplicates of subjects prior to their proper appearance. Note the writing on the side of the van in this image. It’s driving forward, towards the right of the frame, but the writing isn’t appearing as a lingering trail like a motion blur. It’s actually appearing as anticipatory information. We speculate that this means the processor is reading the information from the sensor too quickly, jumping onto the next scan before it’s finished properly processing the previous scan.
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Canon TX1 (click for full resolution) |
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Sanyo VPC-HD2 (click for full resolution) |
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The Sanyo VPC-HD2, with the same shot, had no such problem, and produced the sort of motion blur you would expect from a car going 15-25 m.p.h.
The images tell us other things, as well. The Canon TX1 produced a lot of noise, even in this light. The noise was most visible in darker areas of the frame, like the red and grey walls. It’s difficult to make out in the frame grab, but on an HD monitor it came across loud and clear.
However, the Canon managed to capture a lot more fine detail than the Sanyo. Note the brick walls, which the Sanyo smoothed over in a sloppy bit of compressing. The same thing occurred in the asphalt. The Canon didn’t retain much detail, but the Sanyo’s rendering is a smooth black surface.
As for color, the Sanyo VPC-HD2 was more saturated, but the Canon TX1 exposed properly for the sky, getting a nice, blue tone. The Canon’s white balance, overall, may look a little too cool, but that can be adjusted numerous ways both in the camera and in post-production.
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Canon TX1 (click for full resolution) |
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Sanyo VPC-HD2 (click for full resolution) |
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The second shot shows a more sun-lit scene with some additional motion. Once again, the Canon TX1 showed that strange anticipatory ghost image, but it also displayed a number of winning traits. First, it did a great job with auto exposure under difficult circumstances. The Sanyo had a tendency to blow out bright areas and fall off in the shadows. The Canon had far less blown out information. Secondly, the TX1 captured more fine detail in the pavement and the trees. This was mitigated by the fact that the moving tree branches produced in almost intolerable amount of noise.
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Canon TX1 (click for full resolution) |
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Sanyo VPC-HD2 (click for full resolution) |
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The third shot, a perplexing jumble of stones, leaves, and the detritus of our neighbors. In areas of dense information like this, the superior resolution of the Canon TX1 proved itself invaluable. Neither of them really did a great job with this image compared to what an HDV camcorder could produce, but the TX1 came out ahead. The colors also looked better in the Canon’s version, which was more saturated this time than the Sanyo.
Winner: Overall, we have to hand it to the Canon TX1 for sharpness and color. The motion issues are a big problem, and you have to be aware of that before you think of investing. Using the TX1 for something like sports is a no-go. But for family parties, especially outdoor events, the TX1 will probably do you just fine for those YouTube clips.
Video Resolution
To determine the video resolution of each camcorder, we shoot a DSC Labs video resolution chart and view the playback footage on an HD monitor. At best, the Canon TX1 produced a horizontal resolution of approximately 400 line widths per picture height (lw/ph) and a vertical resolution of 400 lw/ph. This score is above what we normally see in a standard def camcorder, but far below the HDV camcorders this year.
The Sanyo VPC-HD2 scored slightly higher, with an approximate horizontal resolution of 425 lw/ph and a vertical resolution of 400 lw/ph. Both of these scores look at the final outputted video resolution, rather than the raw sensor data that manufacturers typically quote in their resolution numbers.
Winner: Sanyo VPC-HD2
Low Light Performance
Both the Canon TX1 and the Sanyo VPC-HD2 were tested for their low light performance by shooting under controlled conditions at 60 lux and 15 lux, then separate tests for sensitivity, noise, and color error.
The distinctions between the Canon and the Sanyo were interesting. At 60 lux, the Canon TX1 produced a bright, strongly saturated image. For an imager of this size, however, it produced an unusual amount of noise. The general appearance is a significant amount of off-color fuzz, not at all fine-grained enough to ignore. This noise is certainly mixing in with the heavy compression artifacting, and combining to make for poor fine detail capture.
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Canon TX1 |
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Sanyo VPC-HD2 |
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The Sanyo VPC-HD2 delivered a less saturated, more accurate performance. The greens and yellows, in particular, did not look quite so neon as they did with the Canon TX1. The Sanyo was certainly noisy – lots of dark fuzz – but none of the discoloration that we saw in the Canon. The camcorders had about equal fine detail capturing ability. In the crops here, the Sanyo appears sharper, but in other areas of the chart, the Canon appeared sharper.
At 15 lux, the Canon TX1’s image was completely shot. Thick, angry black and blue noise completely overwhelmed the image. Fine detail is gone. The Sanyo VPC-HD2 is significantly brighter. It, too, lacked most fine detail and had lost a lot of color information, but exposing better in extremely low light counts for a lot.
The Sanyo also offers manual shutter speed adjustments, something the Canon does not. Dropping the shutter down to 1/30th at both 60 lux and 15 lux yielded better looking pictures with a minimal cost of motion blur.
In order to determine sensitivity, we monitor IRE levels to determine at what light level a camcorder can produce 50 IRE. The Canon TX1 produced 50 IRE at 15 lux. We then raised the light to 60 lux to run the image through Imatest imaging software to determine picture quality. According to Imatest, the Canon TX1 produced a color error of 7.23, with a saturation of 111.1% and noise levels of 1.9825%.
The Sanyo VPC-HD2 also produced 50 IRE at 15 lux, which puts the Sanyo and Canon is a dead heat for sensitivity – although we already saw that the Sanyo image looks better to the eye at 15 lux than the Canon. At 60, the Sanyo VPC-HD2 produced a color error of 7.53, with a saturation of 105.6% and a noise level of 1.07. The color error is statistically identical to the Canon, but the noise level is significantly lower.
Winner: It was close in some instances, but overall, the Sanyo VPC-HD2 is the better low light performer. Were it last year’s VPC-HD1, there would be no contest and Canon would walk away the victor, but Sanyo made some serious improvements in image quality this year.
Stabilization
The Canon TX1 offers a few different electronic image stabilization settings—Continuous, Shoot Only, and Panning. Continuous functions just like a camcorder in that the EIS remains continuously on until selected otherwise. Shoot Only activates the EIS only when the shutter button is pressed halfway for still images. Panning responds to horizontal or vertical movement, and is recommended for objects moving along those axes.
We set the TX1 in Continuous EIS mode and tested its stabilization capabilities with our custom built camcorder shake emulator crafted exclusively for Camcorderinfo.com. Two different speeds were used to determine the TX1’s resistance to general shake patterns. Speed one is equivalent to a casual stroll down the street, camcorder in hand. Speed two simulates a bumpy car ride. The TX1 produced a shake reduction of 75% at speed one, a stellar performance. At speed two, the TX1 produced a 28.57% shake reduction, which is not bad for such rapid movement.
The Sanyo VPC-HD2’s EIS produced a 43% shake reduction at speed one. At speed two, the EIS had the remarkable ability to increase the perceived shake.
Winner: Canon TX1.
Wide Angle
The VPC-HD2 lagged slightly behind with a 46 degree field of view, which won’t do you much good when you’re trying to frame fat Uncle Larry in the shot with Flipper at SeaWorld.
Winner: Canon TX1