The Canon HG20 is an excellent HD camcorder that's reasonably easy to operate out of the box and looks good, too. Instead of recording to internal flash memory like the company's almost identical HF11 camcorder, the HG20 records to a hard drive. And as for performance, it's as good if not better than the
In addition to the price differential, there are only a few spec variations between the flash-based HF11 and the HG20. The obvious is the HG20's 60GB hard drive versus the HF11's 32GB internal memory. In recording time, it's 5 hours and 30 minutes to 2 hours and 55 minutes at 24Mbps (and both can be supplemented with SDHC cards). Ironically, there's more differentiation between HG20 and its brother, the
Design
Aside from capacity, it's really just a matter of size and weight separating the HG20 and HF11. The HF11 is smaller and lighter than the HG20's 79mm wide by 76mm high by 137mm deep and 465 grams. Positions for controls and I/O jacks are slightly altered between the two as well. Most notably, the dial to switch from video/still record to video/still playback is on the back of the HG20, but on the side of the HF11. Regardless of the model, however, the controls are large and easy to operate.
A five-way joystick and Function button, which navigates frequently needed shooting settings, live on the bezel of the camcorder's smallish 69mm (2.7-inch) LCD. Putting the controls out on the LCD instead of under the thumb can make it difficult to simultaneously change settings and keep the camcorder steady. In addition, manually focusing with the joystick can be a pain, regardless of the zoom-view focus assist.
Features
The HG20 records AVCHD video at a maximum bit rate of 24Mbps, and can hold up to 22 hours and 55 minutes of video at the lowest bit rate of 5Mbps. That higher bit rate goes to support the full 1,920x1,080 capture, the norm for most of this year's new models, compared with 1,440x1,080 for older AVCHD camcorders, which required only a 12Mbps maximum bit rate. You can record best-quality movies to SDHC cards as long as it's a Class 4 or better (Class 6 is currently fastest).
The HG20's optically stabilised f1.8-3.0 12x zoom lens has a longer reach than the typical 10x lens available in this class, but the rest of its features are pretty common in Canon's prosumer models. For video, these include aperture- and shutter-priority exposure modes, 3 fixed/1 variable zoom speed options, a video light, Instant AF and a wind-screen filter. You can also record in progressive 30 or 24 frames per second modes, as well as 60i. For still photos, metering, flash, and burst and exposure bracketing, options become available as well. The camcorder also supplies a complete set of ports and connectors -- component or mini-HDMI out for direct-to-TV playback, mini headphone and mic jacks, and USB for downloading to computer.
Performance
The lens performs surprisingly well. Not only does the SuperRange optical image stabilisation system work satisfactorily all the way out to the end, but the lens focuses quickly and holds the lock in both dim and bright conditions. Images look sharp, too. On the downside, high-contrast edges show more fringing than usual. The stereo microphone sits beneath the lens and generally delivers good audio quality. In recent models, however, Canon changed the wind-filter option from a forced-on to automatic, and ever since then we've found it far less effective. The microphone attenuation (zoom mic) works pretty well, too.
Video overall looks quite good despite the use of a small, 1/3.2-inch CMOS sensor with 3.3-megapixel resolution. Recordings were properly exposed, nicely saturated and sharp. As expected, in low light the video displays a good deal of noise and a somewhat compressed tonal range, but retains a significant amount of detail and fares above average compared with the rest of its class.
For the most part, the 24Mbps video is indistinguishable from the 17Mbps except in low light. When viewed on a large-screen plasma TV, the higher bit-rate video displayed significantly more luminance noise than the lower bit rate. The lower bit-rate video looked slightly softer, though. The difference between the two was still noticeable, but not as pronounced, when viewed on our calibrated CRT display. Even when extracting individual frames, we didn't really see any fewer artifacts that would affect video editing. On the upside, there were no software incompatibility issues with the 24Mbps files.
Conclusion
An excellent choice for hard-disk-based HD recording, the HG20 gives the Sony HDR-SR11 a close run for its money and is a clear champion if you don't like the Sony's touchscreen interface. But the real question is whether you want more storage at a lower price or less storage and a higher price for the smaller, lighter HF11. The HG20 gets our vote in that scenario.
Edited by Marian Smith
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W.E.P 14 December 2010
Good: The HD quality is very good, espesially used on a tripod.
Bad: The only criticism with my Camera was the sub standed video editing software ( Image Mixer 3) that came as a bundle.
Comment: I was contemplating getting the HG21. Not much use for a viewfinder these days, especially with it's 180% flip.
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