Canon HV20 High Definition Camcorder

My Sony DCR-HC42 died after just 2 years and 20 hours worth of recording. Too costly to repair I decided to look what I could afford in the HD arena.
By purchasing the HV-20 I think I have what I need. With there being only 2 or 3 serious vendors in the consumer HD market my choice was pretty easy.

First Impressions
This camcorder has some great marketable features that appealed to me not only as point and shooter but as someone who may like to dabble around using the manual controls from time to time. The feature highlights are:

* True HD CMOS Sensor - good image capture even in low light (0.3 lux)
* DIGIV DVII signal processing gives great natural color reproduction.
* Optical Image Stablilization - gives a great smooth picture throughout the 10x optical range
* 24p Cinema Mode - useful when using a tripod filming slow moving subjects.

Opening the box and holding the HV-20 was a slightly disappointing experience. It rattles if you shake it (the battery rattles). It looks untidy with buttons and connectors all over it. And it just does not feel very comfortable to hold in your hand. Basic controls like start/stop record are not naturally accessible. Also Canon should have included a firewire cable.
As with most HDV camcorders there is no video capture/editing software included!

Initial Shooting
After about 2 hours of initial charging and a quick review of the poorly arranged user manual I was able to spend the rest of the day shooting in automatic and manual modes. I played back the recording on my TV via the composite connection (I dont have a TV with HDMI yet) and was very impressed. The clarity and color was excellent. The only noticeable factor was the loss of quality and choppy feel with fast camcorder motion or faster moving subjects. I tried the 24P mode but discovered that it is only really useable with a tripod.
I was most impressed with the low light capability (0.3 lux). It was much improved over my Sony DV camcorder which used to film in black and white in anything darker than a room with average night lights. I filmed some Christmas lights in the dark and I got everything in crystal clear color and the focusing was still very fast.
As the audio mics are located on the top of this camcorder and not the front I was expecting to have to purchase the external mic, to my suprise I found the audio to be very clear and I do not experience any motor noise.
The Image Stabilization works great. I took myself and the HV20 into a kids bouncer and filmed my sons for only a short period of time, expecting the video to come out terrible. The result was a surprisingly smooth and stable picture.

Why I choose the HV20
I purchased this product based on the reviews I had read and how the features matched my needs.
Without going into too much technical detail what I most liked about this camera is how the picture is captured and stored along with the resulting playback quality.
Media played a big part in my decision. HDD and DVD based HD camcorders although convenient cannot compete with the bandwidth of HDV tape media. HDV Media tape captures up to 3 times the bandwidth (quality) over HDD and DVD. HDD and DVD cameras use poor compression codec's such as AVCHD which are know for producing poor quality video with pixelization problems. I wanted to stick with a high quality media and with proven compression methods so I avoided the quirky AVCHD video. AVCHD is currently poorly supported and will probably be obsolete when the manufactures figure out how to get the HDD and DVD to capture at the same bandwidth as HDV tape.
The HV-20 also plays back my old DV tapes and can also record in DV mode.

Connectivity/Video Capture on a PC
The Camera has on board connection for USB and firewire. I prefer firewire. The connection is located under one of the HV20 flimsy plastic removable covers. The cover is annoying as it's hard to replace and keeps falling off and gets in the way.
The camera can be set to output video in DV, HDV or Auto mode. I have successfully captured all my old DV tapes using DV output. HDV capture proves to be relatively simple providing you use a recent application like Sony Vegas or TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 and you select the HDV output on the camera. You can even get free applications such as HDVSplit which will capture the video in .mtf files.

What I do not like
Apart from the cheap connection covers that keep falling off I have one single major issue with the HV20. The audio mode used for HDV video is only MPEG1 Audio Layer II (2 ch). Higher quality Linear PCM audio is only used in DV mode. This becomes an issue when I want to transfer my HDV to a regular DVD. MPEG1 Audio Layer II (2 ch) is not a compatible format for DVD, whereas Linear PCM is.
Most of my DVD authoring software including the higher end Sony DVD Architect and TMPGEnc DVD author 3 import my HDV .mtf files and create DVDs with no sound, even though I specify Linear PCM as the output. The only application I have that recognizes the MPEG1 Audio and automatically converts to Linear PCM is Nero (Nero 6). So currently I capture using Sony Movie Studio 8, I down convert to DVD format using TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 and then import the file into Nero and author an NTSC DVD. Obviously this issue will soon go away once an affordable writable HD disc format is available.
Battery life is slightly disappointing, especially when compared to my old Sony DV camcorder. The battery provides only enough power to record one hour long tape. This will become annoying as the battery gets older and starts to hold less charge.
Also you still need to carry a regular digital camera for still shots.

Conclusion
Overall I am happy with the HV20. I had to purchase a camcorder to replace a broken one. I feel this is a good value at just under $700, especially when a decent DV camcorder is in the $500 range.
Had I had more time I would probably wait for the solid-state cheaper media based camcorders to improve and become cheaper in price? But at least my movies are sitting on tapes on a shelf and not demanding that I purchase gigs worth of extra hard drive space.