From Canon website, there is no available driver. So it seems no driver needed. Thanks again.

Well, the reason why is probably because the XP doesn't have a driver to load for it as it's new and Microsoft isn't really updating drivers for XP (they really want to retire it). You'll probably need to wait until Canon writes a driver for it.

Another issue may be that spyware is affecting your PC so it won't install. So make sure you have cleaned off your computer. Reboot and then hook it up via firewire. The OS should then see it. If it doesn't, then I'd look into your DEVICE MANAGER (right click my computer, then properties, hardware, device manager and see if there's a yellow exclaimation point in your firewire port and your USB ports. If that's the case, you may need to troubleshoot that before installing.

In the HF10, the issue that prevents connection is looking in SYSTEM SETUP and setting the USB SETTING to PC/PRINTER. It could be similar in the HF100.

Thank Otto, I just purchased my camera and was quite frustrated because Visat would not regognize my camera.
You came to the rescue just in time, smile:-)))

Ibeth

Is there a question here, Matteo or are you merely making an observation? If an observation, your better off mentioning that in a user revie, which would be valuable to others considering both models.

No, it is compressed using the AVCHD codec H.264

Well first off, I'm rather against add-on lenses because of the tradeoffs you get as a result. Teleconverters may give you a multiplication factor or distort the image for a wide angle look, but it also brings a loss of about a stop of light, a loss of clarity, and perhaps a phenomenon known as "barrelling" which will blacken out the perimeter while showing a circle of the image in the center at the widest end of the focal length. These are compromises I'd rather not make just for a perceived bump.

Now, as for shooting in soccer games, it does have a sports preset available and IMHO it will work just as good as the HDR-SR11. Both will be encoding with AVCHD so video quality wise, it'll be about the same. But remember, by shooting on a jib, you'll be pulling that camera down much more often with a camera shooting on a 4 or 8 GB SDHC card than you would with a hard drive camcorder.

Quality wise, I still believe that an HD camera like the HV20 or 30 will do better simply because it shoots to miniDV tape without that compression you find in a camera shooting AVCHD. For editing, it's better to have source material that isn't as compressed.

As for low light ... not HD camera is really great in low light right now. Way to new to the world. But it will get better as time goes on and the HD technology matures. Mean time, I'd be using an LCD video light.

Sen, I can understand your frustration with the DC100, or any DVD based camcorder for that matter since their main feature is one of convenience and little having to do with quality.

And I understand that you'd like to to stay away from tape, but at this time, MiniDV is still the best medium for getting quality video. That's because both dvd and hard drive based camcorders (and now flash based cameras) tend to record in an MPEG2 based format, which uses compression to save on space. Oppositely, miniDV cameras ( digitalcamera-hq.com/camcor...  ) are much more robust and are much better in format because they film uncompressed video that, isn't recompressed when burning to DVD like the other options are.

As for HiDef (HD), best HD camcorders still have at best, average low light performance. High Definition is still too much in it's infancy to expect low light performance to be where it's more mature SD cousins are at. But if you are looking to move to HD (and the time is ripe for it considering we're rapidly moving towards the HD deadline) then my suggestion is to take a look at both the Canon HV30 and the Canon HG10. Both use HD. The HV30 records to miniDV tapes and the HG10 ( digitalcamera-hq.com/camcor...  ) records to a digital hard drive in AVCHD -which gives stunning results. Another option is the flash based Canon HF100 ( digitalcamera-hq.com/camcor...  ).

Lastly, my recommendation is to read some of DHQs Camcorder Advice Guides ( digitalcamera-hq.com/camcor...  ). They may help demystify the process of which camcorder is best for you.

Good luck!

Hitchhiking ghosts perhaps? Seriously. Oh yeah, he's definitely using a video light. You can see the reflection in the windows as he passes the coffin that's trying to open. Very easy to spot. One thing though, it looks like his camera also has a "rolling shutter." Is it the HG10?

A rolling shutter ( dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/  ) is used by a CMOS sensor and exposes different parts of the image at different times. If you look at the video closely, you can see a kind of strobbing effect with the stripped wall paper. But it can also cause a kind of skewing of hard edges when panning.

Not at all. It's more due to the maturity of the medium and the fact that most HD cameras now use AVCHD to compress and record with. Compression requires algorithms which will do all the math, so to speak, to compensate for the physical compression of zooming at such lengths. There's also the enhanced camera shake that comes at the extreme end of that focal length. To compensate to this comes with technological development and that takes time.

Besides, if they came out with a 40x camcorder right off the spot, they couldn't sell you another one in a few years, could they?

Using Pixela Motion Browser, you can upload the clips onto your PC, which I'm sure you know. However, you can also convert the footage using the export feature. Or, once the original clips are in Studio 12, you can convert them to whatever format is available. Then, your other options are Output to DV, HDV or Digital8 tape (requires camcorder with DV Input port and a PC with a DV/FireWire port), Output to analog videotape (requires DirectShow® compatible video device or video card with TV-output), or Output to Apple® iPod® and Sony® PSP™ formats.

And since the HV20 has firewire capability, you should be good to go.

what if i lost my pixela disk? how do i load videos to my computer?

With say, a 4gb media card, you'll have an easier time archiving your video, as the files will be perfectly sized to transfer to DVD. With the large capacity hard drives, you'll have to do some editing first. With a bunch of 4gb SDHC cards you can keep swapping out as the cards fill up, and burn the files to DVD for later editing. Perfect if you're working in the field and you don't have a lot of time for editing.

Actually, I did some searching in the manual and I believe you'll need to record in HD and then re-encode it into MPEG2 using Image Mixer's export utility. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd be looking to upgrade your PC definitely. Video is a bandwidth hog that requires a TON of RAM and processing power. Now, multiply that by a factor of 10 and you have Hidef requirements. If your computer is 9 years old, it doesn't have the beef required to process the video signal. You'll end up with a ton of dropped frames, audio synch issues, and that's even at SD quality. You can try and beef up your RAM to the max, it'll improve your performance by about 20%, but I doubt that'll even be enough.

What you need is:

WINDOWS VISTA, XP, and 2000 Operating Systems Processor:

* INTEL PENTIUM 4 2.8 GHz processor or faster
* INTEL PENTIUM D processor
* INTEL CORE Duo and CORE 2 processors (including CORE 2 Duo, CORE 2 Quad, etc.)
* AMD ATHLON 64, 64 FX, and 64 X2 Dual-Core processors
* AMD TURION 64 and 64 X2 Dual-Core mobile processors

Computer Memory (RAM): 2 GB or greater (64 bit systems are unlimited)
Video Display Memory: 256 MB or greater

MACINTOSH OS X
Processor:

* 1.8 GHz POWERMAC G5 or faster
* INTEL CORE Duo and CORE 2 processors (including CORE 2 Duo) D processor

Computer Memory (RAM): 2GB or greater
Video Display Memory: 256 MB or greater

T Dale, if it were me, I'd be buying a Mac, quite frankly. You can run Windows on it and you ave the added benefit of the iLife Suite which works with HD quite seamlessly. And with Blu-ray burners dropping in price (heard of one for $120 the other day), the time if ripe for it.

But that doesn't answer your question. The interesting thing is that the majority of HD users prefer the PS3 with Blu-Ray DVD. It's the most popular blu-ray player on the market. And considering you get one of the best game consoles out there to boot, it's a great deal. As for the "upscaling" dvd player, it depends. If it's Blu-ray, you should have no trouble.

Here's another tip - when importing your footage into your editor, import it at 540p, rather than720p. You'll get very similar quality with little loss and the doing so will tax your PC far less than using the entire HD resolution.

James Der.. & TD, Just a comment as I have Asus Gaming laptops (G1S-B1 & G2K-A1), thinking that what gamers like would be a good start for DVE maybe even HD editing if set up is done properly. I can set virtual memory as high as I desire, am still considering a RAID 3 (reliability & back up) on a stand alone Desk Top for bigger projects.

Intel base laptop: CPU T7700 C2D @ 2.4 GHz, 4GB of DDRII-800 CL 4, GPU=GeForce 8600 GT (256 MB Vram).
AMD: TL-64 Turion (x2) @ 2.2 GHz, same DRAM, VRam is 256 w/ hybrid capabilities to 768 MB on a ATI Radeon 2600 HD.

Am hoping to find good 64bit GNU/Linux distro & GNU application (See new Editing Q?) that would be comparable to a MacBook Pro w/ Final Cut but have 2 different machines for less than or the same Apple price.

The 'Best Answer' is actually somewhat incorrect, or at least misleading. Upscaling doesn't apply to HD content on Blu-ray. Upscaling is a term used with standard-definition DVD players. It describes a circuitry that takes the original standard-def image from an ordinary DVD (480 interlaced lines) and enhances it as best as it can to 1080 lines. All Blu-ray players do this with standard-def DVDs. They don't need to do it with Hi-def Blu-ray discs.

Second, with respect to burning your video to DVD (or 'HD DVD'). Let's clarify a few things here. HD DVD is a dead format. It used to be a competitor to Blu-ray, and it lost the format war earlier this year. If you meant to say burning an ordinary, standard-def DVD from your HD material, you must be aware that you will effectively be down-sampling all HD content into standard definition, which won't look any better than an ordinary standard-def camcorder (of $180 or so). In order to preserve original HD quality, you'll need to burn your final content in Blu-ray format. You can do this with a Blu-ray burner (which is way too expensive -- $25 per blank disc), or you can do some research and do the following. Using one of the Blu-Ray authoring tools (I believe most recent versions of Vegas or Pinnacle Studio can do this), finish your HD movie in Blu-ray format (with menus, if needed); make sure the movie size is within 1 hour and the final MPEG-4 compression level is set so that the total size of all created files doesn't exceed 7.9GB. Instead of burning the project onto Blu-ray disc, save it to your hard drive. Then, burn that onto an ordinary DVD+R DL (dual-layer) - $1 per disc. You can then play back this 'fake' Blu-ray disc in any standard Blu-ray player, and your HD quality will be completely preserved (1920x1080 pixels).

James,

Thanks for clearing it up; it completely makes sense.

As for Nero Vision, I didn't know about it (I'm a Mac person, so I know little about Windows solutions). What you are saying, though is that Nero Vision cannot do 1080p? If that's the case, it is my understanding that, even if one uses PS3 as their blu-ray player, pretty much any modern HDTV will deinterlace that (originally progressive) image.

James. I just bought an HF100 and was doing some googling for AVCHD and Studio and ran across a message board with your posts. I have been researching for days and for way too many hours and out of everything I have read, your couple of posts on the HF100 - computer req's, dvd player req's? thread at digitalcamera-hq.com have been by far the most helpful and appear to by very knowledgeable. This is pretty long but I wanted to give you enough detail to understand what I am trying to do. I have a Samsung 46� flatscreen HDTV with PS3 and standard DVD player. My computer needs to be replaced in order to work with AVCHD video format. My wife says that whenever I make electronic or bigger purchases, I run into �analysis paralysis�. I am having difficulty making a decision on a computer and video editing software.

Here are my wants: Film (most footage is of my 4 kids and their activities) in highest quality available on HF100, burn raw AVCHD to DVD for permanent backup. I want to do farily basic video editing, burn to standard DVD to view in PS3 in high def and burn to standard DVD so parents can watch on standard DVD player. Almost everything I have read online says that transferring, editing, rendering and burning takes hours and hours for <= 1 hour of footage with studio and mac. I do not want to wait hours and hours and hours (expecting too much maybe?) I am sure in the future (> 12 months) I will get a blu-ray burner and want to take the previously edited footage and take advantage of the blu ray advanced menu options, but in the meantime I still want to record in 1080, edit in 1080, burn in 1080 and view in 1080. Ideally, I would also like to take some old footage from my Sony mini DVD recorder and combine with some of my new HF100 footage to make a few movies of the kids in their particular sporting events. I do not want to lose the original HD quality throughout the process except for copy intended for my parents standard DVD player.

I think my biggest stumbling blocks are whether to get a new laptop or desktop and whether I should switch to Mac or stay with PCs. I prefer laptops for their portability but understand to get the power I need I will have to spend quite a bit more than I would on a desktop.

I can get a Dell / HP desktop with the following comps for just under $1600. Before the slash is Dell component and after slash is HP component. Personally, I think I could downgrade this some and still have good performance with Studio 12 or PD7.

Intel� Core�i7-920 (8MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz) / Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad processor Q9650 [3.0GHz]
Vista 64 Bit / Vista 64 Bit
6GB Tri-Chan DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs / 6GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM [2x2048,2x1024]
750GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache / 500GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB / 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4650 [DVI, VGA, HDMI]
20 to 24 inch flat screen

If I go the PC route, I am leaning towards Studio 12 plus or ultimate. PD7 is on my list as well but they do not list on their site nor will they tell me via email if PD7 supports the HF100 and they do not have an 800 number for support... Probably 90% of the reviews and discussion boards I have read about Studio 12 is that it is VERY, VERY slow with AVCHD.

I think with the laptop option in order to get the horsepower I will need I will need to spend well over $2000, unless I go with a macbook. The confusing thing is that I keep getting different answers from BB employees, MacStore employees, apple experts on apple chat, reviews and message boards. Via some of these mac sources, I have been told that I can do what I want to do with the macbook 13.3 white for $999 and have been told by the other mac sources that I will need to get the MacBook Pro for $2000.

So, based on my wants in paragraph 2, can you provide your opinion based on your experience to the following questions?

PC Route
1.   Will the components listed on the Dell or HP above allow Studio or PD7 to work very efficiently? Could I even downgrade a bit and if so, on what comps? Perhaps the video card?
2.   What about the AMD Phenom Quad Processor? I didn�t list a computer with this processor but that option is available in desktops and is usually cheaper. If you have had luck with AMD, what size processor do you recommend?
3.   Is there a big computer horsepower demand difference between PD7 and Studio 12?
4.   Do your recommend PD7 or Studio for a beginner and for what I want to do?
5.   Can I run other applications such as IE, Word, Excel or Quickbooks on the computer while PD7 or Studio is transferring, editing, rendering or burning?
6.   If I go the desktop route, will I absolutely need anything else besides the appropriate computer, software and blank DVDs?
7.   Are my research findings correct that in order to get a powerful enough Dell, GW, HP or Asus laptop, I will have to spend > $2000.00.

Mac Route
1.   What is the lowest level MacBook required so that I am not waiting hours and hours to do what I want to do using iMovie and possibly FCE? I was very close to getting the 13.3 aluminum for $1599 but changed my mind at the last minute. I was also told by several that you do not need near the processor or RAM on a Mac that you need on a PC to run the same software.
2.   If the $1599 Mac will work, will I see a big performance difference between Mac and the PC options above?
3.   Can I do everything I want to do in paragraph 2 above seamlessly with Mac?
4.   Are there big advantages / disadvantages of iMovie and FCE vs PD7 or Studio?
5.   What are advantages of Mac over PC?
6.   What are disadvantages of Mac over PC?
7.   If I go the Mac route, will I absolutely need anything else besides the appropriate Mac and blank DVDs? I suspect I will probably want to get FCE ($150), iWork ($50) and an accidental coverage plan (~$400) since I have 4 kids running around the house.
8.   Is the more expensive Mac route really worth it?
Any other words of wisdom, advice or thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Predrag thanks for the wonderful response. May I ask for some more clarity?

1. With a Mac, do I have the option to burn the AVCHD raw format to a DVD for permanent backup?
2. I assume the AIC can only be edited on a Mac. Therefore, keeping a copy in AVCHD is all the more important if I ever want to work with the same video in a PC right?
3. You say EXTREMELY fast PC for AVCHD...will either of the above desktop builds fall into the extremely fast category?
4. Do I lose the HD quality when transcoded to AIC?
5. I assume the AIC can only be edited on a Mac. Therefore, keeping a copy in AVCHD is all the more important if I ever want to work with the same video in a PC right?
6. Based on your experience, what is the smallest macbook I can get that will still perform well for what I am trying to do?
7. So iMovie / iDVD will allow me to burn an SD DVD but I will need Toast to get HD quality that will play in my PS3 or any other blu ray player? I assume I get the same quality as burning AVCHD directly to a disk and sticking in my PS3?
8. What mac do you use to edit your HF100 video?

Thanks again!

Predrag, your answers are valued as well. I initially wanted to email both of you by clicking on your names as you can on other message boards. I then noticed your name did not have a hyperling. I typed the info in an email because I was thinking I could email him directly by clicking on his name and because my info and questions were so long. When it was time to email him, I realized you can only post on the site and not email privately and I forgot to remove the info in the first paragraph that specifically referenced James.

Predrag is pretty much right on, but frankly, I'm definitely recommending the MAC. First off, it already comes with everything you need to get started. And the bonus is that you can have the best of both worlds by running Windows as well. Should you get a $999 laptop? I don't think that a 13" laptop will have the real estate you want to do your video editing. But then again, I don't know if you really need to drop $2K on MacBook Pro either (although the new 17" MBP is suhweet). Though it certainly wouldn't hurt. LOL.

That $1600 MacBook would probably work fine for basic video editing, but I'd spend a few hundred more and get a faster processor and double the RAM. And I would recommend FCE. I say that because frankly, ever since Apple redid iMovie from the ground up, they took out a bunch of features and dumbed it down terribly (so much so that they offered iMovie 06 as a direct download for dissatified iMovie users). But it the 08 version did support AVCHD. I haven't had a chance to play with iMovie 09 yet, but I have heard that they address some of the gripes that users had about the new version. So there may be hope. But Final Cut Express is a great interface which will allow you to do much more than capture, trim and burn.

As for the PC side, like I said, you could run Windows on the MAC using boot camp or Parallels and still edit in a Windows Environment. But Pinnacle is no longer the only editing software that supports AVCHD natively. Adobe Premiere Elements 7 does as well now and I really like PE. And you can't argue with the price ... $89. The beauty is that no matter what you go with, just about all the editors are available as Demo Downloads, so you can try each before you buy and determine which one you like best.

I wish there was a way to get beyond the time it takes to encode the video when editing, but unfortunately, there just isn't. The faster the processor and more RAM you have, the faster the encoding will go.
PC ... if you're doing video, you should probably go 64 bit as the advantage is that you can use over 4GB or RAM. But there comes a point where the performance bump plauteaus and it just doesn't justify the expense. And that is around 8GB IIRC.

And here's a tip on your video import. Rather then importing at 1080i, import at 540p. You'll get about 95% of the quality for less time importing and encoding. And it takes up less space as well.

Do you need iWork? That's Apple's office software, which you won't need.

Also, I agree that TOAST is going to be the best way to burn to HD DVD. But you also have an extra advantage having a PS3. With the cost of Blu-ray discs still hovering around $10 a pop, you can actually burn HD to Standard DVD and play it on a PS3 Blu-ray player. You won't have a ton of time on it, but it's an option for small, short videos.

Finally, with the latest models of Macs, you can only get firewire available through the Pro series, as Apple has foolishly dumped firwire in the lower models in favor of USB2. Which, IMNSHO is an epic fail.

Outside of that, I don't think I can add any more to what's been shared. To sum up, I recommend the MAC, Final Cut Express, and importing as 540P.

Hope that helps.

James,

I don't think there would be any use for FireWire with new tapeless HD camcorders; none of them have it and they only use USB2 to transfer AVCHD files. So, the loss of FireWire on the new MacBooks is pretty much inconsequential for vast majority of consumers moving to HD. Having said that, if money is a serious constraint, even the sub- $1,000 white MacBook is capable of editing HD without trouble. The screen is indeed small, but on a low budget, I'd still recomment that any day, rather than a bigger-screen Windows laptop for the same money.

My suggestion regarding Final Cut Express was to hold off with purchase until seeing iMovie 09. I got it, tried it and switched from FCE to iMovie 09 for most of my HF-100 editing. It is indeed significantly better than the 08, which was, at least for me, practically useless. For home movies, and even for some more ambitious work, iMovie 09 gives a lot, so $150 is an expense that could potentially be avoided.

Nick,

I'll chime in again (by the way, no tension anywhere; it's just that sometimes I tend to be vocal in providing my opinion).

Basically, you got everything right. Here are my own answers to these:

1. AVCHD can squeeze more than an hour of HD on an 8GB dual-layer DVD, but the actual length will depend on the bitrate. Original AVCHD files from HF-100 use 17Mbps, which puts one hour. If you lower the bitrate to 12Mbps (and resolution to 1440x1080), you can put 80 minutes of video.

2. the 80GB of data in AIC is used for editing. When you export, you'll be creating MPEG-4 files, which will be compressed depending on your target format. As answered in 1, if you encode at 17Mbps, you can squeeze full hour on DVD-R DL.

3. The main reason is not so much that Macs are much more effficient (perhaps only slightly); it is the AIC. In Windows, you'll usually edit AVCHD directly (most tools have workflow set up for that, and transcoding into something similar to AIC is a bit complicated process).

4. and 5. Well, this goes back to the Mac vs. PC argument, with a twist. For the most part, you get much better reliability with Macs. In windows, oftentimes, something won't work. Your AVCHD files won't be properly recognised; your software may not find the codec, and in general, you may have stability or performance problems. Macs have always been famous for their consistent and intuitive interface. The software package that comes with them is smoothly and tightly integrated (your iTunes music and iPhoto pictures are available in iMovie, as well as all the short movies captured with a digital picture camera), I've seen people (such as my wife) who have never used anything other than a web browser intuitively transfer video from the camcorder, edit it, create titles, transitions, add music, even narration and export it to DVD with chapter markings. It is smooth, fast, intuitive and reliable.

If you are a person who is extremely proficient in computers and IT in general, you will probably quickly figure out any software and the usability differences may be less significant to you. Still, it generally makes it easier and faster to use software that requires fewer mouse movements or mouse clicks to accomplish things. And on a Mac, especially with Apple's own software, everything is generally very carefully designed to require as few mouse movements and clicks as possible. In the long run, a Mac investment ends up costing less than a Windows; a friend of mine has a G4 PowerMac from year 2001. He upgraded the OS to the most recent (Leopard), uses most recent versions on majority of Apple's software and the machine performs quite well. No ordinary Windows PC from 2001 can do anything meaningful with Windows Vista today (and most can't even work with Vista).

and finally, 6. Yes, even though the transcoding happens twice on a Mac (vs. only one on a PC), human eye won't notice the degradation.

Totally agree with everything James said here, especially about FireWire. The fundamental difference between FW and USB makes it superior even to the future USB3, since USB is still less robust and reliable. This is a discussion for another forum, but the bottom line is, there will surely a number of people who will not buy a computer without the FireWire. Hopefully, no other future Macs end up deprived of this interface.

I believe the camera breaks it up into several smaller ones. But I'm not 100% sure of that. My experience though, has been that with similar cameras, the files were broken up in smaller bites due to the firmware.

I don't think so. Since you'll be uploading the footage directly and not capturing, the dropped frames concern isn't an issue. As for the rest, depends on your skills as an editor. But I'd say largely it's not worth worrying about.

Hi jonny, i assume you were meaning to say a hard disk drive?

well the pros of having a hard drive are:
1.it's built in, you can start shooting instantly
2.nowadays it's common to see a hard drive of 100 gigs in a camcorder so space isn't much an issue

the cons:
1.it has moving parts which generates noise that can be captured by the onboard mic
2.the more the moving parts, the more it's prone to failure
3.once you've fiiled up the hard drive(eventually!!), you've gotta copy your files elsewhere before you can free up the hard drive and start shooting again
4.never put all your eggs in one basket! since you've got a lot of space in the hard drive, you tend to back up less..and should something happen to it, your files are gone forever
5.if by luck your camcorder survives a drop, chances are the hard drive won't

the pros of flash memory:
1.big storage in a compact size
2.no moving parts
3.consumes less power (means longer battery life per charge)
4.durable
5.copying files are easy using a card reader

the cons:
1.you need a class4 and above flash memory to record hd video which means it can get pricey to get a few(price is coming down though)
2.the biggest storage available now is 32 gigs which translates to about 4 hours of the highest definition video

well thats all i can think of at the moment, hope this answers your question :)

hi jonny

a hard drive is made up of a few disks stacked together around a spindle (which spins at a couple of thousand times a second) with some gap in between them. in these gaps, little 'arms' with magnetic heads rapidly swing to read/write information from/to the disks. these are the main moving parts inside a hard disk that generate noise and are prone to failure especially if dropped.

at it's highest, the canon hf100 records hd video at 17mbps. flash memory with ratings less than class4 can't achieve this high transfer rate although i think you can still record albeit at a lower bit rate..i'm not sure maybe someone can please correct me if i'm wrong.

i have no experience with sony vegas movie studio but i did read somewhere about this guy that has no problem editing avchd files (the canon hf100 among others records video using this format) on sony vegas 8.


i hope this helps :)

Sure. The HF100 has been tested and approved compatible by Apple ( support.apple.com/kb/HT1014#3  ). You can always encode the footage down to standard def and then burn to DVD. That isn't so much an issue. But if you're planning on getting an HDTV down the road, I'd consider going with the HV30. It shoots in miniDV, which is much better for archival purposes and will capture easily to your iMac.

Both models will adjust to playing onto a standard def TV through direct connection.

We get this question pretty often and it mystifies me. The idea is to get the video off the card, edit it and then burn it to DVD. Even if you just burn it as a DATA file, you can still reuse your SD cards. And notice I sayd cardS. This is because any card can become corrupted and fail, so you're best served by having several cards, rather than relying on just one.

But the bottom line answer is NO. There isn't a bi transport pipe for SD camcorders. It only goes one way to my knowledge.

Well, you don't really have to bump the resolution down if you have a Sony Blu-ray player or a PS3 with a Blu-ray DVD player built in. There is a workaround which allows you to burn a HiDef DVD to a standard DVD. Course, you end up with a very short video, but it can be done.

Thank you for you answer Predrag..I wish I had your iniformation before I purchased the HV-30, but none-the-less, I "am" really happy with my purchase..I realize tape is on the way out, but with the information I had at the time, I just couldn't see buying countless SDHC cards for the HF-100..My next video camera "will" be AVCHD format and again, I really appreciate your answering my post..

James,

You're absolutely right. The debate about AVCHD vs. HDV is largely academic. Regardless of the 1440 vs. 1920 difference, John will no doubt be thrilled by HV30. After all, camcorderinfo.com still ranks it higher than any AVCHD model and considers it worthy for some professional applications as a B-roll device. In addition, there are definitely a few features on it that are missing on a HF100.

By the time John is ready for the next camcorder, AVCHD will be quite mature, and computing power that will then be available will have erased all the performance issues AVCHD can cause today. HDV is robust and mature; AVCHD, while wave of the future, is currently the bleeding edge and from time to time, that blood shows.

The HF100 records in AVCHD and as such, you'll need to transcode the footage to get it into your editor as XP doens't support AVCHD for Movie Maker. If you had Vista Ultimate, you'd be in like flint. Luckily, there are many AVCHD converters out there. The one I use is AVCHD Converter ( avchdconverter.org/  ).

Nobody knows? Not enough points allocated? Somebody?

Sound and video actually. I think I'll take your advice and ask Canon directly. Thanks :)

The way I see it, the HF100 camcorder solely records in mts format..so the answer to your question is no.

You have to copy those mts files to your computer and use an editor that supports mts format render/export it as mpeg4.

I dunno, I could be wrong... anybody like to chime in their 2 cents?

You should be able to download it either from Canonusa.com or www.pixela-1.com/. But you may not need it to get your video. if your editor supports AVCHD ....

Are you still under warranty? If so, I'd send it in.