Quote:
Originally Posted by killahbad  I've looked in loads of places for a Canon HV20 camcorder but cannot find one for love nor money. |
That's not at all surprising given the large numbers of ecstatic users it has. Even second-hand HV20s still seem to fetch higher-than-typical reselling prices on enthusiast sites like
HV20.com
My best guess for any shortages of the HV20 in Hong Kong would simply be that when the Canon
HV30 was announced, vendors stopped reordering stock of the HV20. Given the unrelenting demand, that would dry up inventory pretty quickly. The other issue is that HK vendors are probably pushing the flash/HDD based camcorders more to tourists and first-time HD camcorder buyers. (ie, Canon HF10) Aspiring filmmakers are attracted to the HV20/HV30's tape-based HDV format (easier to edit) and Progressive24 mode (24p/30p for the HV30). I just don't see the vendors along Nathan Rd caring about selling to this niche demographic. I would expect them all to parrot the same line about how flash/HDD camcorders are newer, so they
must be better.
If you strike out in HK, take a look at
B&H Photo/Video in New York City. America is NTSC territory, but B&H
does sell PAL gear. As of this post, they have the PAL HV30 in stock. I've purchased my (NTSC) Canon HV10, HV20, and HV30 from them with smooth transactions every time.
Vimeo's a great site, but keep this in mind.. in their upload instructions page, filmmakers are limited to 500meg files per week at a certain datarate AND most importantly, the submitted video file is re-transcoded to 1260x720 resolution -- what I'm getting at is that the HV20/HV30 being 1080 camcorders records an image even MORE astounding than what Vimeo limits via web playback.
Good luck.