Canon’s going all crazy now – They’ve announced the HV10, a handycam-sized HDV camera with many of the features of its big bothers. They’re targeting it at $1299, which puts it right in the range of the Sony HC3. While the camera doesn’t record 24F, it does play that format back. While that makes it a usable deck for tapes shot in the XL-H1, it seems that with 4 HDV cameras on the market now, Canon would be smart to throw together a dedicated deck. Sell it for $2k, make a bundle, make everyone happy!

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the HV10 is that it uses a true 1920×1080 pixel CMOS chip for recording, instead of 1440×1080 like all the previous cameras. Of course, it’s a single chip with a Bayer filter, so the quality isn’t likely to rival the X* cameras. Nevertheless, it’s exciting to have more cameras pushing the prices down in this market segment.