Canon Vixia HV30

Canon Vixia HV30 HD Camcorder

Vixia HV30 Review, by Jim Feeley October 26, 2008

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• Reviewed by: htny01k

  Strengths: Nice gloss black body paint, compact, small form factor, and brilliant HD pictures.

  Weaknesses: None

  Overall: This is the highly rated HD Minidv camcorder on the market right now. It uses regular minidv tape to store your video. Actually, this is a plus because filming using minidv tape will give you better HD picture than the newer format of using solid state memory card. The reason for this is the compression rate of the media. This camcorder performs brilliantly under low light conditions. As long the is a little bit of light in the room, it will produce viewable pictures. This is a good buy for minidv format HD camcorder, get it while you still can!

• Reviewed by: Philamour

  Strengths: HD, Solid body thou built with plastic, HDMI port and intuitive buttons

  Weaknesses: A little bulky, Tape-based, no SSD

  Overall: I know buying the HV30 at 649.00 shouldn't be any complaint at all. The high quality of image and video shooting tells it all. I still have my Canon ZR60 tape-based camcorder going pretty strong. Kind of Leering toward an SSD camcorder, but decided to jump on this one after reading some reviews on tape storage, it's not bad using tape at all.

• Reviewed by: PGTimbo

  Strengths: Great picture, very good sound, easy to use

  Weaknesses: Tapes

  Overall: I thought about going with one of Canon's new SD card HD camcorders - but decided to stick with tapes. Tapes are cheap to buy and keep as a master copy. So I lose a little ease in downloading videos - but can always keep a master.This camera takes amazing quality HD video. Looks great on my 1080p Sony 52" LCD.They've fixed a few of the minor annoyances with last year's HV20 - so if you're good with recording on tapes - this is the best HD camcorder out there.

• Reviewed by: rajeevsk

  Strengths: Nice size and handling,battery life, Features, Picture Quality, Versatile camcorder even for semi-pro use

  Weaknesses: Sound quality could have been improved. No SDHC

  Overall: One of the best HD camcorder on the market. It is a replacement for winner last year HV20, I guess canon will lead this market with HV30 this year also. Consider AVCHD camcorders before buying this as they are new technology but comparable to this quality. No tapes and shhould last long as there are no moving parts. If MiniDV is the camcorder you are looking for, look no further this is nice one.

• Reviewed by: edrlee

  Strengths: compact size, awesome video

  Weaknesses: none

  Overall: I'm new to the camcording business and bought one in anticipation of the arrival of my first child. So far I've been playing with it recording various family functions and watching my wife as she goes through her pregnancy. The hv30 is easy to use. Low lighting is a little grainy, but when there's adequate light, picture quality is great. It's nice to have all the different recording modes, though, honestly, as long as it's easy, point and shoot, I'd be happy, which this does well.