BTW that HV20 is a 900 dollar camera... it doesn't shot real 24p or HD for that matter... its a good camera for soccer moms... and the low light performance like all canons you will find its very disapointing .... you would be much better off spending another 500 dollars and getting a used dvx100a
panasonic dvx or hvx are the only cameras that are going to give you real 24p unless you spend over 6,000
Wow, that was a bit harsh, but more importantly COMPLETELY WRONG.
Next, it DEFINITELY shoots TRUE 24p. And yes, it does it for $900. It has a progressive sensor, and it stuffs the 24p footage into a 60i wrapper using 3:2 pulldown (just like a DVX does). If you remove the pulldown, you get true 24p, period. End of story. The one downside is it doesn't do 24pa (aka 3:2:2:3 pulldown) and it doesn't set flags, so you need to use a smart pulldown removal tool that accurately determines where to remove frames, etc. Cineform's Nero HD can do that no problem, and the result is true 24p footage (not some fake shit like frame mode).
Lastly, I guess you can put me in the soccer mom camp if you want, but the more and more features they slap into these cosumer-grade cams, the closer they come to the edge of the prosumer lineup available. Is the HV20 a prosumer level camera, probably not, but it's not that far behind, and for me, the form factor, size, the fact it shoots to tape, does 24p, does HDV, as an external mic jack, even has line attenuation on the mic in, all point to this being a pretty sweet little consumer camera.
From what I've read second-hand by people like
Stu Maschwitz, the HV20 has a lot of little quirks about it that make it a bit more demanding than working with a camera with more intentional features like a DVX or HVX. Things you will run into like
the rolling shutter and using the camera's
photo-button to check exposure make the $900 a bit of a struggle compared to more expensive cameras.
The HV20 shoots to 4:2:0 long GOP MPEG2 HDV at 1440x1080/24p. I think what wilsonedits is getting at is that the camera is not "true HD" because it doesn't pump out and record 1920x1080 native off its image sensor. Where this all morphs into a discrepancy is when talking "HD" vs "HDV" resolutions.
One person might argue that anything above above Standard-Definition NTSC resolution of 720x480 is considered HD (excluding PAL's extended vertical resolution of 720x576, of course.) Then again, another might say that anything that isn't 1920x1080 isn't even "HD." Then what about all of these cameras and TV's that do 720p? 1080i? 1080p? It's easy to get confused. Let's lay out a few resolutions of HD/HDV, disregarding their different frame-rate capabilities:
Sony CineAlta (MSRP $102000) - 1080 @ 1920x1080
Panasonic VariCam (MSRP $45000) - 720 @ 1280x720
Panasonic HVX200 (MSRP $5995) - 1080 @ 1280x1080, 720 @ 960x720
Sony Z1U (MSRP $5946) - 1080 @ 1440x1080
Canon HV20 (MSRP $1099) - 1080 @ 1440x1080
You might see, "oh, the HVX200 has better horizontal resolution than the VariCam, so at $6000 it's a total steal!" Yet there's much more to producing a good image than strictly resolution. Differing features, like the recording medium (including color fidelity due to color sampling for compressed storage), codec, frame-rate options, lens-mounts (or lack there of), workflow... the list goes on and on. The decision on what camera to use often times doesn't rely solely on resolution, and might include:
1. How much you can
afford. Either to buy, or to rent.
2. What workflow options you have available (again, dependent on money or software competency)
3. What quality you need the deliver the final product at (a huge movie theater screen, or broadcast television)
So where do you draw the line between "HD" and "HDV"? The marketing hype engine of capitalism leads people to believe that a resolution greater than standard-def is "HD," while the method you capture and store your footage from the camera might be what gets it labeled as as "HDV" or "HD." I might argue that unless it's 1920x1080 at 1:1 full raster, it's not HD, and is rather "HDV."