My Canon HV20 vs. JVC GZ-HD7 Impressions

Okay... so I had to do it! I purchased the HV20 yesterday at Best Buy and just had to go and purchase the HD7 today to do my own comparison. I can't just sit around all day and wait for you guys to do it!!

So my first test was tonight in my living room. 1 overhead ceiling light which consists of 2 75 watt bulbs. 2 floor shaded floor lamps. Both cameras tri-pod mounted. I wanted to start with a low-light test before I do my daytime tests tomorrow. I figure this is the most critical test for alot of you guys. I by no means am a professional tester or have any testing equipment to measure s/n ratio. The only test equipment I have are my eyes and my 1080p set.

Quick initial impression is that the Canon HV20 outperforms the HD7 in low light situations. I had thought because of the 3CCD array that it would actually perform better but that is most definitely not the case. My wife and I came to the unanimous conclusion that the Canon just has better image quality based on recorded video. The JVC's shadow delineation is not smooth at all and actually showed a huge hotspot on my wife's forehead cast from the overhead light that the Canon rendered much more smoothly with no hotspot. Also where the light was hitting her hair the Canon revealed detail that again was blown out on the HD7. I tried exposure compensation but that did not help. I can only think something in the recording algorithm is doing this possibly?? I don't know. Another area where the Canon was better was in CA/fringing. The HD7 revealed blue/purple CA around my wife's black jacket against our light sage green couch and red fringing around a white piece of paper that was on our coffee table. Again, the Canon handled this flawlessly. Noise levels to me looked almost the same with a slight nod to the Canon and actually a clearer picture too.

Build quality of the JVC is nicer however. It's a little bulkier in the hands which for me is not good since I have relatively small hands. The Canon for me works better here. The lens protector on the HD7 is manual and is open/closed by a switch on the front right side. The manual focus ring is a nice touch. Pulling up videos is faster on the JVC due to the hard drive. No big surprise there. BTW, the HD7 can be had at Circuit City for $1499 if interested. They have the in stock in store, though website says they don't. But, they do. Same for Best Buy. Best Buy prices matched CC for me. None the less, I will almost def. be keeping the Canon. I'm going to shoot some outdoor tomorrow to see if things improve but the clipping/hot spots/loss of detail & fringing have me concerned.

Sorry for such a short impression but I know you guys are eager to have a comparison between the two.

Oh and the HD7 does NOT have 24p. It has cinema effect like the Sony's which simulates 24p but is nowhere near as good as the Canon's true 24p.

I got it at Best Buy. I can return it but there will be a restocking fee. But it beats the sleepless nights I would've had wondering about the quality of the HD7!! LOL!!!

Seriously, the quality is just not that good in low-light. I'm going to try and post some pics but they'll be pics taken off my TV with a digi-cam.

I just rewatched the 24p video I shot today with the HV20 and got warm fuzzies.

You guys would really help with restocking fee??? Wow.... I appreciate that but it's totally unnecessary. I did it to really just fulfill my curiosity and post my findings here. I don't want to give the impression that the HD7 is a crap cam. It's a gorgeous looking unit, though IMHO in low-light the Canon is the better performer. I'll be doing my daytime shots tomorrow and I'll post results. Unfortunately I have no way of uploading clips to my PC yet.

I tried doing off-screen digicam snapshots but it doesn't truly convey an accurate representation.

One other thing I didn't like was that the lens protector is in the open position out of the box. The inclusion of a lens hood is a plus though. The LCD screen on the HD7 is good quality too. There is a joystick mounted on the frame of the LCD screen too used to cycle through various manual settings.

Alright so I got up this morning and shot with the GZ-HD7 outside, same areas I've shot with the HV20. Again, and I can't say I'm surprised, I find that the HV20 outperforms the HD7. Maybe it's the CMOS sensor, maybe it's the DIGIC II processing, but to me the HV20 video just has that "professional" look to it, especially with 24p, that both my Sony HC5 and now, the JVC HD7, lack. It's hard to describe. The outdoor performance of HD7 is by no means bad. but it does overexpose by default and for me the red channel is over saturated. I'm sure these can be corrected for, but for the average consumer who will just pull it out and use it in auto mode, the HV20 gives you better final output.

Again, I saw CA/fringing that is NOT there on HV20. The fringing is there around contrasting edges. Particulary on an American flag I've been recording blowing in the wind. Where the red meets white and the outline of the flag silouetted against the sky. I found alot more artifacting in the JVC HD7 video also. I don't know, maybe I need to test more, but I think I'll be keeping the HV20. It's video is obscenely clean in proper lighting and with 24p I don't think it can be beat. I just WISH it had the ergonomics of the HD7 or HC5 or the build quality of these 2. But in the end what really matters is what shows up on your display and that, IMHO, is where the HV20 can't be touched.

Yes. I was up at about 7:30, it's currently 9:10 in Connecticut. I was eager to see how the HD7 performed so I set my alarm so I could get some sunlight time. It may rain here today.

If ultimately you want the best video, go with the Canon. If you want flexibility to edit video within cam and want fast hard drive access go with the JVC unit.

By all means, there may be reviewers who will completely disagree. We'll have to wait and see.

If the HC5 is any indication of how the HC7 would perform then I say go with the Canon. I used the Sony HC5 on my Honeymoon. Got home, watched the video and could only think, "eh, that looks okay I guess." I then returned it for the Canon, came home and shot with it, in 60i and 24p, and thought to myself, "now this is worth the price".

Build quality I have to give the nod to Sony and JVC though. But, as I keep saying, it's really the final output that counts. And Canon wins by far. IMHO of course.

Why aren't you considering the Canon HV20?? Are is that what you meant, you're considering The Sony or the Canon?

By no means is the HV20 built like garbage, it just is really small and made predominately of plastic. The JVC is bulkier but is also mostly plastic. The Canon is perfect in my hands because they're smaller. The JVC was a little too bulky for me. The Sony HC5 fit nicely in my hand also, but the pic quality was slightly worse then the JVC.

Well, I mean come on, what did you expect them to say. I don't want to bring anyone's hopes down. Like I prefaced my original post. I am by NO means a professional reviewer. I just wanted to give a consumer end-user point of view. You may get the JVC and love it. I think the more artifacts are contributed to hard drive recording more then anything. Canon has ALWAYS been top of their game when it comes to image quality. The CMOS sensors in their DSLR's are top-of-line and that's why they continually rate among the best.

You have to remember that an additional 480 pixels is not going to make an apparent visual difference. It's just not enough added resolution. The horizontal resolution of 1080 is still the same. I would do what I did. Evaluate both for yourself and come to a conclusion. I knew if I didn't do so myself I would've been kicking myself in the buttocks for months.

I can only comment on what I saw. CA sometimes only shows up under certain conditions. It wasn't apparent on every single instance. But it did show up on particular objects which the Canon rendered perfectly. I believe CA is a result of the lens and has nothing to do with the sensors. The Sony HCR-HD5 I had had some CA issues also.

I never said it definitely because of the hard drive compression just that it could possibly be part of the issue. Jeez, you make it sound like I'm some idiot.

Yes. The 2 tests were done in full HD mode. Didn't bother trying JVC HDV mode. Autofocus seemed equal to me. OIS seemed comparable between the two. I 90% shoot with a tripod and turn off IS anyway. They both have zebra funtionality, 70% and 100%.