One thing that many video enthusiasts will be looking for is the ability to shoot Progressive Scan at 25P in high definition - and in this respect only the Canon comes up with the goods.
Progressive scan is widely regarded as being essential when showing on larger LCD displays simply because the 50 interlaced fi elds (PAL 50i) frame display often produces unacceptable jitter when showing on anything other than good old-fashioned CRT (cathode ray tube) displays.
LCD and Plasma screens really need progressive scan frame sequences that produce 25 single frames per second (in PAL, at least). Also exclusive to the Canon is a 70 per cent and 100 per cent zebra pattern generator (helpful graphical exposure guides that are overlayed on the monitor picture). Could these provide the match points for Canon?
Only the Sony does, however, offer full colour bars for visual calibration of display devices. Another of the HV20's appealing features is the choice of three zoom settings, each designed to give you a slightly different speed when using the tiny zoom toggle on the top of the body. The No.1 setting gives a nice smooth start and stop to zoom motion, for instance.
Performance
Strangely enough, deciding which is the winning camcorder might be determined by something as simple as whether or not you like touchscreen LCD controls - some love them; others hate them.
They can be very handy during playback operations as it's a lot easier to select functions with your index fi nger than it is to toggle a mini-joystick and press it in every time you wish to make a routine selection. But mucky fi ngers make for mucky LCDs that require constant cleaning, so the detractors also have a point.
That said, the Sony menu system is dead easy to use - and pressing either a ' ' or '-' button to increase or decrease an exposure, white balance, shutter speed or sound level is quick and responsive. We also like the Spot control - such as the ability to point to a part of the picture and register the focus at that position.
However, the Canon menu is pretty neat in that you get a screen display of the precise values (focal length, aperture, WB setting, etc) as they're changing. Choosing between these two models isn't easy! Let's have a look at the footage, then.
The Canon has a slightly different method of manually adjusting things such as aperture (the amount of light coming in through the lens), white balance (setting the camcorder to react properly to the incoming light - whether outdoor or indoor) and electronic shutter speed.
It uses a feature that has been employed by Canon for many years, which is to offer either Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority when making manual adjustments. If you select Aperture Priority you're asking the camcorder to calculate the optimum electronic shutter speed as appropriate to the scene.
However should you decide to select Shutter Priority the Aperture (exposure) will be automatically calculated. Not only is this extremely useful, but it's possible to override even these settings and get what you want by clever use of the available options and this is made more impressive by the fact that these can be adjusted with a reasonable degree of control even while recording.
Associated with the HV20's priority settings is a mode called Cine Mode which modifies the images very subtly to give them a film-like look and feel - a feature sought after by serious digital movie-makers who lust after fi lm but can only afford video.
It has to be used with a 25P mode to be effective, even if it's a feature that will remain unused by many who can't relate to the 'film look' at all. So how do the camcorders perform in everyday situations? For a start it should be said that they both shoot footage that looks and sounds great, in both HDV and DV modes and at both 16:9 (widescreen) and 4:3 image ratios.
