Any reviews for hv30 yet?

[newtothegame]

Maybe a bit early but anyone use their hv30 yet? pros and cons?

thanks

[Erik Bien]

I presume you've already seen the Camcorderinfo.com review?

[Kiteless]

CNET has a review up with video. Yay. They like it. I know I like mine.

http://www.cnettv.com/9742-1_53-32419.html

- Kiteless

[Aliisloo]

what I found very funny about cnet review is that they almost admitted giving a worse review to hv20 than it deserved. I think cnet was one of the few sites which rated Sony hc7 higher than hv20

[Kiteless]

what I found very funny about cnet review is that they almost admitted giving a worse review to hv20 than it deserved. I think cnet was one of the few sites which rated Sony hc7 higher than hv20

Yeah I should have said that I do tend to take the reviews at Cnet with a grain of salt. I remember when they used to be a tiny little news site waaay back in 1996!!!

- Kiteless

[blazer003]

God, who is that lady doing the CNET camcorder reviews sleeping with (or maybe not sleeping with) to keep that job? She is absolutely terrible. I can't sit through the whole review and it's like 3 minutes long.

Also, I guarantee you that Canon paid for a bit more advertising on CNET this year, hence the better review and the admission that they were too harsh on the HV20. That's the thing about a lot of these review sites, you can't tell me that they aren't pumping manufacturers that are paying for advertising. One bad review and Canon pulls there advertising dollars.

:Edit: not that I'm saying the HV30 is actually a bad camera and they're just giving it a good review, to the contrary I think that the review of the HV20 and sony's better review was driven by Sony spending more on advertising.

[Tarrant1701]

Yeah I should have said that I do tend to take the reviews at Cnet with a grain of salt. I remember when they used to be a tiny little news site waaay back in 1996!!!

Yes, take a look of a lot of CNet's reviews, not just the camcorders. A lot of times their raiting (out of 10) differs by 1 whole point or more from the customers' reviews. They may rate something highly, and the customers find it poor. Likewise, they may dislike something, and customers love it.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

Vimeo video here http://vimeo.com/764203

[racer-x]

I downloaded the original MOV from Vimeo. I don't know what encoder he used, but it produced a variable framerate clip with an average of 27.787 fps:

D:\Download\HV30.mov
General
Complete name : D:\Download\HV30.mov
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Quictime movie
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 13.4 MiB
PlayTime : 36s 600ms
Bit rate : 3075 Kbps
StreamSize : 29.8 KiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-03-08 08:45:42
Tagged date : UTC 2008-03-08 08:45:43
Video #2
Codec : H.264
Codec/Info : H.264 (3GPP)
PlayTime : 36s 600ms
Bit rate : 2948 Kbps
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 27.787 fps
Minimum frame rate : 24.752 fps
Maximum frame rate : 1250.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.113
StreamSize : 12.9 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-03-08 08:45:39
Tagged date : UTC 2008-03-08 08:45:43
Audio #1
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 36s 608ms
Bit rate : 120 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 538 KiB
Encoded date : UTC 2008-03-08 08:45:39
Tagged date : UTC 2008-03-08 08:45:43

[sonicvybe]

I don't know that there will be many reviews right away since the HV30 is still fairly new model, but based on the success of the HV20 you should be able to judge if it's worth getting. As far as pricing goes I have watched how Canon prices change over time and would expect the price to go down to at least $800 during this year.

Generally speaking, even though the price/feature difference between HV30/HV20 may be a discussion topic, there may be other underlaying factors that make it wise to choose a newer model. This would mean differences in hardware primarily. From what I've researched so far, the hardware is expectedly almost identical. In the end I think I'll get the HV30 over the 20. Either way I think it's worth it.

[somekevinguy]

You can already get it for under $800 if you find the right deal.

[Kelly Olsen]

You can already get it for under $800 if you find the right deal.

Where would that be? Haven't seen any reputable places selling it under $800, but would like to.

Let us know where you've seen places that are not switch and bait.

Thanks

[somekevinguy]

Well if you go to the where to buy it area here you would see people were getting them for only $688 on sale with a 10% coupon at Meijer which is a chain store so I should have actually wrote under $700. I missed out on that one but just yesterday I got one for $765 with a 10% coupon but as of this morning they are out of stock again.

[Lunchbox]

Kelly, how could you miss that

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=8086

A lot of us bought TWO for $688 each.

[Kiteless]

Kelly, how could you miss that

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=8086

A lot of us bought TWO for $688 each.

Damn that is a great price! I guess I paid piece of mind buying mine from B&H for $999. I don't regret the price or buying it, in the slightest, especially with me brief dealings with thecamcorderprofessionals.com (tried to sell me the camera without a battery and who knows what else).

- Kiteless

[somekevinguy]

That is still killing me knowing that I missed on an extra $77 off even though $765 is still a killer deal. I made about $700 for going to work that day which is what caused me to miss the deal so I guess it all works out though.

[bytehoven]

Hey, $765 is still a better deal than those of us who missed out on both deals.

Best deal I could find that would ship on Friday was $868 + shipping. All of the $827 sellers were either scams or out of stock, well until tonight. Arrrgggghhhh.

Taky just has the magic going, and I gotta tip my hat to the magic.

[Lunchbox]

Na... It was NET that spotted the deal. I was just happen to find out there's 10% coupon after signing up.

[somekevinguy]

They actually had other 10% coupons too at the coupon sites.

[marcykid]

Usually Amazon has user reviews. Currently there's only 1 for the hv30, which is a little odd. But I guess it's still too early. But anyway, the guy loves it. [Oh wait... he actually works for Canon. What the hell?! That's just perfect.]