- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 6 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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18 out of 19 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"A response to the previous opinion; a "true" look at the H1"
Pros: Many professional level features; unprecidented at this price point
Cons: Very specific abilities make it cost what it does; only purchase if you know what these abilities have to offer and you know you will use them, otherwise there are other more affordable options.
Summary: Saying that you don't understand why anyone would pay so much more money for this camera as opposed to buying the Sony HC1 is a clearly uneducated opinion and shows ingnorance in this field of products. I work professionally with these products, and would like to chime in on this posted opinion.
The Sony HDR-HC1 is an incredible camera, especially considering what it offers for its price point, but no way can you directly relate it to the Canon XL-H1. The XL-H1 is certainly more expensive, but this is not without reason. It has many, many features that set it at its price point, and definitely provides a superior image and audio when compared to the HC1. But the question is whether you need those abilities.
The Canon XL-H1 has distinct features that distinguish itself from the HC1, some which include:
3CCD capture system, interchangeable lens ability (with a beautiful HD lens that costs more than the HDR-HC1 itself), adjustable frame rates, better dyanmic range, better lux performance, better s/n ratio, xlr audio inputs, HD-SDI uncompressed output, etc ...
There are so many more, but I can't fathom listing them here. My point is that this camera was built for professional use and its feature set is a testament to that. The HC1 is a camera aimed more at the consumer market (which its features and price reflect). Its just silly to really compare these two cameras (in all regards, not just in price like the previous opinion did) ... it totally isn't a fair and equal assesment. Uninformed opinions like that only can confuse potential buyers who are looking for informed views on their possible purchases.
Yes, I believe it is rediculous for someone to spend this much on this camera if they plan to shoot Johnny's first birthday or something like that (which the HC1 is more suited for ... consumer applications). It is meant for professional level applications, and its features and final image quality more than reflect that. If you value, understand, and need abilities like the 24F framerate (which lays onto tape as true progressive scan images which can be edited in a 23.976 timeline for a true 1-to-1 film transfer output), Interchangeable lenses (allowing the ability to connect various lenses, from Canon EF lenses to 35mm CinePrimes for filmmaking), or the "Professional JackPack" (like HD-SDI which completely bypasses the compression in-camera to output the raw 8-bit 4:2:2 data, Genlock and Timecode in and out for syncing multiple cameras), then you'll understand why this camera is pried the way it is (which is still pretty amazing, giving what it offers for this price range).
All I have to say is please make informed comments that can only help those in their purchasing decisions and not troll around with brand loyalty.
- 4 replies to this review
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I have read the opinions of this reviewer as well as the staff and others. I fully agree with this reviewer that the staff is way over their heads with this camera. This camera is not the camera that you use to take video of little Timmy?s first football game. A wedding shooter will be overwhelmed with the complexity of this camera. This camera can use lenses that cost twice as much as the body and you need a small fortune to purchase editing equipment to take advantage of its output. The average user that sees the price of this camera and quivers, fail to see the advantage of purchasing a $9,000 camera in a market of $5,000 cameras, although a person in the market for this camera is trying to choose between this and a $20,000 dollar body for a four camera shoot, or a small TV station with a small budget trying to switch over to digital and are looking for an alternative to high priced studio gear. There are many filmmakers that have already purchased this camera to ply their trade and there are many more that are interested. People of this nature are more likely to frequent DVINFO.NET than CNET. Cnet is a good site and they provide good information on a myriad of products. I always seek their opinion before I make an electronic purchase. I feel they have fallen short on this review.
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I am the designated videographer for five of my grandsons' football, baseball, and basketball games. Highschool football (pressbox level at night). I have the Canon XL1s camcorder with a Sharp DT-400 projector with DVI input terminal for HD,and a Toshiba DVD Video player w/HDMI output.
I want more clarity and detail under low light conditions with the capability of making three disc copies of each game for distribution to coaches and Dads.
1. Will a 6"x8" moniter work off the "jack-pack" with the peak or maginifier feature to give me a better view of the developing play?
2. Can I burn to a disc or 25gig flash card or flash drive from my computer? (One hour of play time)
3. What about using the Pioneer BDR-101A PC based recorder to burn to disc?
4. How are you doing it now? Compressed; Uncompressed (clearer?)?
5. Cost spread over SIX grandsons!
Thanks for any replies. -
The XL-H1 is definitely not "unprecedented at this price point," as can be seen in cnet's review here.
Have you seen the Sony HVR-Z1U? This is a prosumer level HDV camcorder with stunning image quality, a large LCD screen for easier focusing (crucial when shooting HD), lots of professional features, XLR inputs, etc etc all for half the price.
As the review says, the XL-H1 is simply not worth the price unless you've already invested much into the XL interchangable lens system (if you have, that means the lenses that you already have were designed for the XL-1 or XL-2 which means they are not designed for HD). If this camera were easier to focus, had a better manual zoom control, higher resolution viewfinder, and true 24p, then perhaps it would be worth looking into if it were say 7G. But for 9G (double the cost of HVR-Z1U) the only thing you get extra is the interchangable lens system, a few extra picture modes, and some BNC outs for timecode and gen lock, and no added benefit of 24p, along with a host of downgrades such as a stock lens that has poor focus and zoom controls, a low res viewfinder (like I said before this is crucial), and weird ergonomics (I know, I've used the XL-2).
Why this camera and the Sony don't have true 24P is a mystery to me. The Panasonic would be the hands down winner if it used HDV tape instead of proprietary flash memory. -
So 3 CCD capture is better than CMOS, I don't think so and a lot of people will not agree with that.
Interchangeable lenses, well the Sony has a telephoto and a wide conversion lens that can be used.
Lower lux, OKAY, the Sony is rated 0 LUX and the big, huge, expensive Canon is rated 0.5 LUX. This is the rating from CNET, no less, check it out for yourself.
The Canon has HD-SDI uncompressed output. Wow! I hope you have a $10,000.00 work station with two Xeon dual core processors because you are going to need it to process HD-SDI uncompressed video. Otherwise, your 1 minute video is going to take about 8 hours to render on a P4, 3.6 GHz processor.
I'll agree with one thing you said, this camera (the Canon XL-H1) is built for professional use and what it is doing being reviewed on this website is beyond me.
I still stand by my original statement that the Canon is way over priced for what you get. A good photographer/movie maker could make a great movie with the $1400.00 SONY HDR-HC1 and spend the difference on a 2 week cruise to Tahiti, where I would recommend he take his camera on the jet ski tour around Bora-Bora. Very beautiful.
