I recently bought an HV10. I was and am fully aware of the issues with AVCHD, but I wanted a camcorder I could record my kids with (such recordings tend to be of limited duration), and the ability to have the camcorder 'always ready' was more important to me than high fidelity. Being able to take a 30 second clip and then, later, look at and transfer a series of short clips was important. I've been at too many functions where I had 10 minutes to shoot and only 5 minutes of tape, or where I just wanted to transfer one clip and didn't want to go through the whole tape. So for me, and for those reasons, the HV10 is perfect. It can literally hide behind a soda can. Really. It's tiny.
However, if you want to take longer shots, I recommend the HV20. I think that the HG10's and HV20's optics (they are the same) are phenomenal for their price range.
Other than the form factor and the 23-p Cinema Mode (on the HV20), what are the other differences between the Canon HV10 and HV20?
Personally, I find the HV20 fugly but it seems to be best unit out-there all in all.
The main differences between the two, besides the obvious one of tape vs hard drive, are that 24P shooting actually works on the HV20, whereas it's a mess on the HG10, and the HG10 has a better zoom control. And the HV20 is a lot cheaper. I still sort of wish I'd gone with the HV20, but I do love the HG10. A lot.
The problem I have is portability. I need a cam that is very portable, and the tape based ones are relatively bulky. I was just looking today at the Canon HV10, which is highly portable, and also highly unusable (zoom and other controls are placed in tortuous places).
I got used to the controls pretty quickly, FWIW.
I was also looking at the Pana SD5, which is very compact, but I am afraid of AVCHD.
I think the HV10 is generally better reviewed than the SD5.
Everyone seems to indicate it takes longer than real time to download and convert for editing. I am not doing pro stuff, so pain in the download time is not time well spent for me -- I'd rather just stick with SD video.
This is true. It takes a long time to convert (download times are minimal). I mainly went with AVCHD for the convenience of many short clips being easily accessible and editable on-camera (easy to delete shots you don't want), with the hope that the editing will improve over time.
Does anyone know why they can't write HDV format to SD or HDD? Is it that those media don't support such high data rates??
In a world with tiny 160GB hard drives, there's no real reason. The drives can certainly store the data at HDV speeds.
For anyone who needs something RIGHT NOW and can't wait, and you don't care about super compact size size, then go with DV tape. DV tape is (eventually) on the way out, but today's AVCHD cams are an intermediary step, and will quickly be obsolete when either better AVCHD Mbps rates come out, or a better file format comes out (with a better name! I always have to spell check AVCHD). However, you can get a great HDV cam for a LOT less than AVCHD, so if you're buying obsolete, might as well save a couple hundred $$
I generally agree with you, but AVCHD is better for my needs, even now, than tape.
However, if I shot videos for anything but personal/family consumption, I'd wait for the AVCHD bump to 25 Mbps, or choose tape.
But, damn, the HV10 is tiny, shoots great video in decent light, and can hold all the clips I'll shoot in a year. For me, it's a great camera.