The Hardware and Connectivity
The Canon Vixia HF20’s hardware is top-notch. The connectivity is equally impressive. Canon successfully lessened the camcorder’s sensor size down to a 1/4-inch CMOS chip. This is actually what makes the camera unique because most other brands come with oversized imaging equipment. What makes Canon successful at this is the Digic DV III processing. The inner mechanisms enhance its video performance so that you get the best output. Another thing that also helped is the 24Mbps max bitrate.
There’s a certain magic to the HF20 and you can be sure that Canon will continue to deliver. With it, you won’t even need a massive sensor to be the best in the HD market. The Vixia is able to record full 1920 x 1080 high-definition video to 32GB of internal flash memory and SDHC cards as well. The video is interlaced. This means that you can record 30 frames of horizontal lines and another 30 frames of staggered horizontal lines. When meshed and combined, you get videos at 60fps.
When honing in on your subjects, it has a 15x optical zoom. When you look at its size, this is actually quite impressive. The video quality cannot be matched by the others out there. Moreover, the Optical Image Stabilization performs impressively well even when you access its full zoom.
With the ports available, the Vixia comes with the standard set that includes HDMI, Component, and USB. There’s also the hot shoe and mic jack. You can now mount the Vixia with an external shotgun mic. Simply amazing!