Digital Home Thoughts: Canon's HV20: A High-Definition, Vista-Certified Delight

What Really Matters: Video & Photo Quality
So how does the video this camera captures actually look? In a word, great. Not superb, but great. I have a Canon GL2, which is a semi-pro 3-chip camera that Canon still sells today for around $2500 USD. So my quality bar is quite high - the sheer resolution of the HV20 out-guns my GL2, but the colour doesn't quite measure up. But you know what? Most people aren't going to notice because seeing your memories played back in glorious high-definition is so damn impressive. The video output is crisp, clear, with accurate colour and saturation. I tested both the 1080i/60 modes and the standard DV mode, and both modes gave me excellent quality video. There's nothing like seeing it for yourself, so click here to download a 13 second sample clip (48.3 MB) shot in 1080i/60. Make sure you go full screen on your monitor, and if you're lucky enough to have a monitor that has 1920 x 1200 display resolution, you'll be seeing the video closest to the resolution it was meant to be displayed at. The sample clip is in MPEG format, capture right off the camera and not re-compressed to save space. If the video is jerky while being played back, it likely means your system doesn't have enough horsepower to handle HD video - there are a lot of pixels in there.

I was surprised by the quality of the still photo capture - I guess I've grown bitter against digital still photo capture on video cameras because for so many years the quality was just horrific. The HV20 captures images at a maximum resolution of 3.1 megapixels, which is more than enough for a 4x6 or 5x7 print. It's not going to measure up to my Nikon D200 DSLR, but it compares favourably to the entry-level $150 digital still cameras. There are a few choices for image size, the highest quality one being 2048 x 1536 (sample 1, 1.3 MB). Colour saturation is decent (sample 2, 1.4 MB), although the flash is a bit too powerful at close range. There's also an option to capture photos in wide-screen resolution, meaning 1920 x 1080 (sample 3, 899 KB). This is the first video camera I've used where I might actually use it to take photos if I saw something while filming that looked like it would make a good still photo.

Certified for Windows Vista
The main reason Microsoft sent me this camera on loan was to explore and report on the experience of using it as a Certified for Windows Vista product. What's that you might be wondering? If you see a product that has a logo on it that says "Works With Windows Vista" that means it will function with Vista - there are drivers for it, and the basic functionality will be there. On the other hand, if you see a Certified for Windows Vista logo on it (see Figure 14) you're buying a product that has been thoroughly tested not only for compatibility but also for meeting a certain quality bar in terms of the overall experience. Microsoft knows that the process of installing, configuring, and using new hardware can be daunting for many computer users - people often don't read instructions, and if something doesn't immediately work the way someone thinks it should, quite often it will get returned to the store. Microsoft wants people to be able to connect a new piece of hardware and have the experience be a delight - for it to just simply work. That's the goal.


Figure 14: The logo to look for on hardware and software.

I attended a presentation on this topic in January of 2007, so if you want to learn more about the background being Certified for Windows Vista, check out this article. Microsoft also has an amusing Certified for Windows Vista website featuring an enthusiastic coach that "trains" products to live up to the task of being good enough for certification. Does the HV20 live up to that rather lofty expectation? Keep reading.