I recently got a HF100 (I thought I'd skip the 16GB internal memory of the HF10 since it raises the price $150 but a 16GB class 4 card is only $32 online). The HF11 is the newer version of the HF10. It is a better camcorder (with 32GB built in) but it's also $350 more than an HF100. I looked at that one really hard but even after you buy two 16GB cards for an HF10 there's still almost a $300 difference and price and the improvements in the HF11 didn't look like $300 worth of better to me. Just my opinon there.

SVRT is just a technology to only re-encode elements of the video where it's needed. Click on the main button and select: view/SVRT information. That places a color code on the timeline to indiciate what SRVT is going to do with the video. Look up the SVRT help file built into Power Director. It explains the SVRT color coding.

The ImageMixer software that comes with the camcorder is pure crap. When I opened my HF100 box that disk saw the light of day for 2 seconds as it went for a short trip to the trash can. Try changing the file extension to mts. As far as I know, mt2s and mts are the same thing and some players will only work if the extension is mts. Also install an h264 codec.

VLC will play pretty much anything (and it's free):
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Try reading through the Canon HF10/100 owners thread here for information on dealing with the MTS files:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1014305

I honestly haven't had much time to play with my HF-100. I've been too busy working with Christmas DVD projects using older video and pictures to have any time for it at all yet excepting starting to capture some videos.

Remember for watching the MTS files on a PC you have to de-interlace the original MTS files from the camcoder. Really for PC viewing it's better to just convert them to 720p. And of course to really watch the videos your camcorder makes in HD you either need a BluRay player or you have to directly connect the camcorder to an LCD via HDMI. There's no other way (well there is but it requires a PS3 and if you have that you have a Blu-Ray player as well).

Good luck. Nice Camcorder

Power Director currently does not support SVRT for AVCHD clips. Do a search for SVRT and AVCHD and you will find that many others have commented on this situation. Cyberlink is aware of this from what others have posted.

I recently got a new Cannon HG 20. I import the mts files using capture from PD and then convert those files into HD MGEG2 format (1080i). Do not render your edited clips back into AVCHD. The rendering is bad and takes too long, although my rendering quality does not seem to be as bad as others have posted.

I tried using VLC, but my mts files do not play very smoothly. I'm using a E7200 2.5 GHz with 4 GB RAM with Intel integrated graphic DG35EC motheboard using XP Pro SP3. I found that using a trial version of Cyberlink PowerDVD that my mts files play back smoothly.

Good luck. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Ah... PD7 does not. That is one flaw of Power Director - it's control over the files you output. Which is why I still use Vegas a lot. It is no where near as easy to creat a nice custom project, and it's really lacking in built in elements (like PIP's, Templates, Effects), but can actually render the type of file you need.

Honestly I'd pay twice as much for PD7 if it was just as stable as Vegas and had the same control over rendered videos. Which is why on the few videos I've made with this new camcorder I've only used Vegas to process them and add simple titles.

hmm... can't add a screenshot in this thread.

Thanks for sharing your experience of PD7. I wish they will release new and improved version in the coming year. Happy holidays!

James

James,

While the SVRT frustrates a lot of folks (and in other NLE's, too) PD7 works quite well with the files from my HF100's.

Most of my distribution is still on standard DVD and those on projects shot with the HF100, edited in PD7, and rendered to disk in SD look quite a bit better than SD from my previous cams used to look.

One other format I render (Produce) to is streaming HD WMV. I used to have to watch those on a 21.6" Samsung monitor using Windows Media Player but there's a new wrinkle on the market.

Hardware Media Player with HDMI connection to your HD TV. I recently purchsed the Western Digital WD TV. This is an amazing little box with 2 USB inputs and both HDMI and composite outputs to TV. You supply and external USB hard drive or other USB storage device with your HD media files on it.

I will eventually move an external USB 320GB drive in by the TV but for now I'm playing high definition content on my TV from USB "thumb" drives.

Don't worry about SVRT, just start editing and having fun with your cam.

How many are we up to?