Canon's new XA10 prosumer camcorder

Canon has announced the XA10, a new prosumer camcorder priced at $1,999 (U.S.) that brings many of the features of the XF100 to an even smaller camcorder. The XA10 has the same 1920 x 1080 1/3" CMOS imager as the XF100, and it uses the same 10x zoom lens (30.4 to 304 mm focal range). The advantage of a 1920 x 1080 imager is that it should be able to operate in lower light, and it shouldn't have the rolling shutter and moire effects found when using sensors with higher resolution that have to be decimated in order to get HD video.

Perhaps the biggest difference from a performance standpoint is that the XA10 uses a 24Mbps 4:2:0 AVCHD codec instead of the XF100's 50Mbps 4:2:2 codec. That means that the XA10's output will have the same color space, grading, keying and editing limitations as other prosumer AVCHD camcorders. The XA10 has dual XLR audio inputs, built into a removable handlebar. It has 64GB of flash memory built in and two slots for additional memory, but unlike the XF100, which uses Compact Flash cards, the XA10 uses SD/SDHC/SDXC cards.

In short, the XA10 is essentially an under-$2,000 version of the XF100 that uses AVCHD. Canon expects to ship the XA10 in March 2011.

New Canon XF100 and XF105 Camcorders: High quality, low price?

In preparation for both IBC and Canon Expo, Canon has announced two new professional camcorders: The XF100 and XF105. The two new models are positioned as "little brothers" to the XF300 and XF305 released earlier this year, but their performance is very similar. The new camcorders both support the same XF MPEG-2 4:2:2 50Mbps codec as the XF300 and XF305. In addition, they're designed to be used in pairs for 3D video capture, and have infrared low-light capabilities that Canon claims allow them to capture scenes in total darkness. Both models record to Compact Flash media and support hot-swapping.

As with the XF300 and XF305, the primary difference in the two models is connectivity: The XF105 supports genlock in, SMPTE timecode in/out, and both HDMI and HD-SDI out, while the XF100 only supports HDMI out. Canon hasn't released any prices, but the company's press release says that it will "...demonstrate the versatile low-cost capabilities" at Canon Expo later this week, which suggests that they'll be priced significantly less than the XF300 and XF305. Both models are scheduled to ship in Q1 2011.

My suspicion is that the XF305 will be priced close to Sony's HXR-NX5U AVCHD-based camcorder, which has a list price in the U.S. of $4,950 and a street price of just under $4,000. The XF codec should provide considerably better video quality and easier editing than the H.264/AVC-based AVCHD codec used in the Sony model.