Question regarding using Canon HV20 in SD mode

[m_ahlenius]

Hi,

my son, a high school sr, has saved up and wants to purchase a DV camcorder for shooting videos and editing on our Mac using either iMovie or FCP. Someone recommended the Canon HV20 over the hard-disk based JVC camera he was ready to buy. The Canon seems like a nice camera but we do not have an HD TV/monitor, and our Mac system is a 1 GHz G4, with 1 Gbyte of RAM, so its a bit on the slower side.

My main question is, without any degredation, can the HV20 be used without any drawbacks in SD video mode?

At somepoint in the future we'll upgrade our Mac and our monitors/TV's but not right away.

thanks very much,

'mark

[aedipuss]

other than the great optics and sensors i can't think of any downside it will export SD fine over firewire. you just need to set the DV OUTPUT setting to be "DV" in the cam menu.

[m_ahlenius]

Hi,

thanks for your advice, we just ordered one. I was surprised that one site (no noame here) was about $140 less than all the well known ones like Amazon. That made me very suspicious so we went with the better known companies.

Anyhow, looks like it does not come with the firewire cable which we need for the Mac. The problem is that I don't know what the connector is like on the HV20 - Canon lists a 4-pin 1394 cable ($50 bucks!), but am sure if its not a custom one, we can buy one elsewhere. Anyone know if the camera end of this cable is special? Or is it just a mini-DV connection?

thx

'mark

[aedipuss]

the camera end is almost always the small 4 pin type. the computer end can be either 4 or 6 pin, the preferred variety is 4. 4-4 pin cables have no powered wires and none are needed by the cam. $20-30 on a decent cable with gold plated connectors is reasonable.

[racer-x]

I own a HV20, it uses a standard 4 pin firewire connector. Any cable you get, even a cheap $4 one, will be more than adequate. Just get one with the correct pin count on the other end for your mac or PC.