 Finally an AVCHD Camcorder worth buying |
| Review Date: April 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Educated Parent, Bethesda, MD United States |
| I had the award-winning HDV (tape-based) HV20 prior to this, and the HF10 is almost indistinguishable in terms of image quality. Given the dramatic difference in image data between an HDV image and an AVC image, that means this is one heck of a camcorder. I have tried out other AVC camcorders and have been really disappointed. Not so here, and I purchased this one. It has 24p and 30p recording, in addition to 60i. (Don't be confused by Canon's nomenclature, it is true 24p, just recorded in interlaced 60i.) The cinema mode has a bit of a wash-out effect on colors. The camcorder is surprisingly small. Power save mode is great, and is virtually instantaneously on when the LCD screen is opened. One warning about AVC in general, if you don't have a fast computer, it will grind it to a halt. I have a quad-core with 4 gig RAM and editing is fine, but I wouldn't want to use an old computer. Sony Vegas works great with the files. Wish the camcorder automatically saved to the SDHC card when the internal storage was full. Otherwise, this is the best thought out camcorder since my DVX-100. Nice to occasionally see consumer products worth their expense. |
Very nice camera. Be aware of AVCHD limitations.
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| Review Date: May 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Mark, North Carolina, USA |
This is a fantastic camera but people need to have more realistic expectations of what to expect from AVCHD. It is a highly compressed format so using this camera in low-light conditions is going to produce pretty "grainy" results. In good lighting AVCHD output from this camera can produce some really great looking results in HD but don't kid yourself into thinking you're going to get professional HDTV quality. This is a point-and-shoot.
I love the camera, especially how fast it focuses in good light, so I'm going to concentrate on what some of the other reviewers said to correct some misconceptions.
I use both Macs and PC and I have to tell you that you that PCs suck for AVCHD - you will waste a lot of time and pull your hair out. I'm sure PC video software vendors will address this eventually, but seriously folks if you want to do this the easy way get an Intel-based Mac (caveat: only Intel based machines using Leopard support AVCHD) and use either iMovie or Final Cut Express 4. Both of these programs (iMovie 08 and FCE4) just LOVE this camera (and two other Sony AVCHD cameras I've tried as well) and they work like a charm. Video making has never been this easy. FCE4 lets you mix AVHCD, HDV and SD video on the same timeline and save in whatever format you want so it's worth the $200 if you want to do that or have more exacting control over your videos. It is basically a (lightly) stripped-down version of Apple's excellent professional video software (Final Cut Pro) and it is very good. For most home videos iMovie 08 (which comes in iLife 08) will be just fine.
I've had no problem transferring the movies directly from the camera but, as mentioned earlier, you do need to have the camera plugged into the AC to do it. You can avoid plugging the camera into your Mac to transfer the files if you're only recording on SDHC cards, rather than internal memory on the HF10, but it works just fine. For this reason I would recommend buying the HF100 (over the HF10) and getting an extra 16Gb memory card or two. You will save money that way and have more flexibility. I bought the HF10 because I had to have it the next day and, at the time, the HF100s were delayed a bit. Transcend's excellent 16Gb SDHC Class 6 card comes with a nifty little card reader for only $78.98 here on Amazon, you can get two of them for less than the $200 difference in price between the HF10 and HF100 so you'll have 32gb to work with instead of 16gb for less money. I don't mind having the internal memory as a backup but you pay more than it is worth for it.
The video camera is just acting like a USB reader when you connect it to your Mac anyway - it is the file layouts that the software recognizes. When read in and converted to Apple Intermediate Codec at 1920x1080 they will balloon in size. If you want to store the raw video in a more compressed way you can simply copy the root directory of the card to another directory and copy it back again later. If you're working with AVCHD you need to buy the biggest hard drives you can afford. 60 minutes of video will use up something like 50Gb of storage on your Mac when converted to 1920x1080. If you just want great looking home video to show on your HDTV, but don't want to go broke on hard drives, Apple offers to import the movies at a slightly lower resolution (960x540) which takes up a LOT less space with very little drop in quality. I have been making home videos and showing them on an Apple TV at that resolution and they look stunning. The quality difference between that resolution and full HD isn't that big of a deal.
If want to try to get truly professional-quality video you should avoid AVCHD cameras and stick to the HDV format concentrating on cameras with larger sensors. But this is great camera for HD home videos at a great price.
The user interface on this camera is slow and clunky. Sony's AVCHD cameras have a better interface (using a touch screen) but you can still watch back the videos (which is the main thing you'll do) and it beats the heck out of a tape camera. I wish they had added a dial or button set for adjust exposure and/or backlighting control on the camera. The joystick works surprisingly well for this however in bright light the screen gets washed out enough that it is hard to tell if your exposure is really that great or not. This is where a viewfinder would really help. But these are minor nits because the camera does a good job at exposure control on its own.
As I said earlier this is a very compact point-and-shoot camera that shoots HD video and for that it's excellent. |
Excellent Family Camcorder
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| Review Date: June 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Mr. Early Adopter, Torrance, CA |
Don't let the few negative reviews out there fool you, this camcorder is amazing for family recording.
Pros:
- Just the right level of storage built into the camcorder, with room to grow in the SDHC card. Do you really want to come back from a vacation with 8 hours of video? Really? Cause I think 30 minutes into reviewing your footage you will be kicking yourself. I could be wrong, but I don't think so...
- This thing is tiny, about the size of a can of coke. Its so small in fact, all camcorder bags we looked at were cavernous in comparison to it. We ended up purchasing a Lowepro SLR Lens case to hold it. Fits like a glove.
- In bright to moderate light, the video quality is just amazing. It really is. Sharp as can be and the 12x optical zoom really grabs picture detail. HD really shines on this recorder.
- I was expecting poor stills, but they are actually pretty good. Not as good as a $300 camera, but so good I would think twice about bringing a regular still camera on a vacation.
- I have seen some complain about the ergonomics. I just don't get it. Pulling the hand strap tight so that the top of the strap rests directly below your knuckles, situates the camera so that it rests on the fleshy part of your palm, your thumb naturally lands on the record button and your index finger lands on the Zoom rocker. Perfect!
- It's dead silent. When you record in a silent room, you record silence. There is no click of a hard drive or purr of a tape unit.
Cons:
- Get the large capacity battery. Just get it. Don't debate, just buy it. Its not really an option.
- In low light you get some picture noise. It picks up available light very well, but also introduces noise. A Sony recorder is green in low-light, so pick your poison.
- On a Mac, there is really no way to nicely disconnect the device. I just eject the internal and SDHC mounted drives and pull the plug. No problems yet, but you do get the warning telling you not to do that...
- No travel charger. I picked one up, but this is an option because you can use the power adapter and charge via the recorder.
- Image stabilizer is just okay. At full 12x zoom, you really have to work to be still and pan slowly. The device is very light, so there is not much mass to keep it steady.
Notes:
- On the Mac OS, I found iMovie to work pretty well. It makes intermediate files which are about 5 times larger than the raw AVCHD files. To save hard drive space, I backup the raw files to DVD and delete the intermediate files when I have finished my edited home movie
- Interestingly enough, if you copy the video to the SDHC card and plug that chip into a PS3, you can browse your RAW footage directly on your HDTV. (I know many of you don't have a PS3, but if you do, its a huge Bonus). Instant reviewing of content!
- If you buy Toast 9 and buy the HD plug-in, you can create a Blu-Ray video disk. This allows you to put 20 minutes of HD Video on a REGULAR DVDR. If you put this disk in your PS3, it will allow you to watch your footage with DVD Menus. This uses the RAW footage, so you get very sharp video. This ONLY works on a PS3!!! As an added bonus, if you put this DVDR into your Mac and launch iMovie, iMovie will actually act as if that DVDR is a camcorder and prompts you to import the video as if you were pulling from the camera. Pretty Swanky if you ask me.
Overall, my opinion is that this is the best consumer grade HD Camcorder currently on the market. |
Great HD performance, be prepared to shell out money for editting software
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| Review Date: June 8, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Truth Teller, Colorado, USA |
This camcorder really is quite fantastic. I previously had the HG10 and was disappointed by it mainly due to it's low light performance and it's tendency to produce smeared / ghosted images - fast moving objects seemed to leave a trail behind them, particularly in low light. Fast forward to the HF10 and I am a much happier person.
The HF10 has quite good low light performance and I have not noticed a problem with smearing or ghosting like the HG 10. The camera is very small and lightweight. Small enough to almost be completely unobtrusive, so much so that I've now got into the habit of just taking it along and putting it in the pocket of my cargo pants or cargo shorts. I could go on and on...
The only downfall of this camera is also a primary reason to get the camera - AVCHD. Put simply, AVCHD enables you to take full resolution HD video with a tiny camera using removable memory in a relatively small file size. However, support for editing AVCHD is spotty right now at the CONSUMER level:
- Canon does include a viewer app that can also export standard MPEG at 1280 * 720, but not 1920 * 1080. In other words, the software is good enough to create a version that most video editing programs can work with, but it can't do any editing with the AVCHD itself.
- Windows Movie Maker does not support it.
- iMovie on the Mac pseudo supports it. It can transcode the AVCHD to quicktime HD and work from there. This means a much, much larger file size and doing the transcoding is pretty painful on everything but a multiprocessor Mac Pro Workstation. I have a dual core 2GB macbook pro purchased in early 2008 and it works like a dream with everything BUT AVCHD... Then it turns to molasses.
- The major vendors - Pinnacle, Ulead, Sony (Vegas), etc all have offerings claiming support for AVCHD, but you'll need a super fast computer or a lot of patience. Besides that, they still seem to crash at times when working on HD projects. You can tell that their AVCHD support is still a serious work in progress. Adobe premiere elements doesn't support it at all as of this writing and when they do I would expect that it'll take a few patches to work through issues.
So, my final take at this moment in time is that the camera itself does a very good job capturing in AVCHD, but you will have to suffer the poor AVCHD support by video editing software vendors. However, if you want HD and don't want huge files or tapes, then this camera is definitely the camera for you. |
Amazing video quality, great usability, average software.
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| Review Date: June 8, 2008 |
| Reviewer: D. Varsos, Commack, NY United States |
I was waiting a long time for a camera capable of recording 1920x1080, good video quality, small size, no tapes, ...
This is it!
Much of it is derived from the HV and HG series, so it is not version 1.
The videos I have taken so far are at par with the quality I get from FIOS TV HD channels.
The only drawback is the sotware. It does not work well with vista. I can only retrieve the content from the camera, but not play, the software hangs. M2TS files play well with PowerDVD 8, so it is ok for now.
The software works ok on XP, but my XP PC does not have the horse power.
The camera itself plays the videos best when directly linked to the TV with HDMI. HDMI is much better that component cable.
The battery is not enough to shoot and fill the 16GB, so I bought the 819, but for now it does last as long as they say in the specs.
I would recommend to invest in the clear filter, because the worst damage you can do to the camera, is get a spec or a scratch on the lens. You can live with scratches and dings on the camera body, but guard that lens like your own eyes. You can zoom and see dust from 20 feet away, that is how detailed the video is, imagine a spec on the lens.
The usability of the camera is great. I am amazed how they managed to pack all of the connections and buttons on that little body. You need to hold the camera on you hands to appreciate how small and funtional it is.
Pictures online would not do.
The video quality is great, indoors and outdoors. Indoors, I was surprised how well the video looked with just a couple of 60Watt bulbs in the room. I found that the CINE mode makes the video better indoors where the sensor tends to show atrifacts due to the low light. But outdoors it does not do much. The 24p and 30p modes need a tripod and very slow panning of the camera, otherwise the video seems blurry. But it may be because of seetings that I have yet to try.
I always shoot in the FXP mode, 1920x1080, I do not see a reason to use the 1440x1080.
The files are AVCHD (*.m2ts), and the from what I read online is a blue-ray related format. I save the files to hard disk and when software gets better with AVCHD, they can be burned to DVDs and played by blu-ray players. So it is a kind of future-proof.
I would definatelly recommend this camera. Most of the negative reviews are focused on specific features, like bad sofware, etc. You have to judge on the big picture, and the picture is crystal clear, 1920x1080, brilliant colors, that makes 1080p TV I bought a few months ago, even more worth it.
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