Hi Jeff

Have a look at this patch, it has SVRT support for Canon AVCHD and could be what you are looking for. Who knows what else it might do.

http://www.cyberlink.com/downloads/support/powerdirector/patches_en_US.html

Regards

Robert

The HV30 is HDV (MPEG2 tape), not AVCHD, so that doesn't help.

I have an original HV10, and I use "HDVSplit" free program to capture clips from my Canon HDV camcorder, it works very well AND I get scene-detection separated clips, automatically named for the date/time I recorded the video. Very handy & strongly recommended. I have no idea why/how a shareware/free program can do this while all commercial editing programs STILL do not have this feature!!
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HDVSplit
http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm

The captured clips (MPEG2-TS format, .mts) can be read/edited natively by PD8 and smart-rendered to HDV video extremely fast.

That said, Jeff, what format are you recording in? "regular" 1440x1080, 60i?
Or are you using the special 24fps movie mode, or some other progressive/less standard mode? Is it NTSC or PAL? That might cause a problem.. but, being free, can't hurt to try :

Thanks Colin. I tried the program and it does appear to capture very easily. I just have to learn what to do with it after. I couldn't find any program to replay the captured video saved on my desktop. I just have to spend some time reading up on the program . I don't know much about this stuff. I simply want to save all of my mini dv tapes (10 yrs of kids stuff) to an external hard drive or occasionally burn to dvd. The only reason I have such a good camera is because I got it pretty cheap off of craigs list. Although I somewhat regret buying an HDV camera because my 10 yrs of tapes are only sd and so far it has been more trouble than its worth. I guess moving forward it will be nice to record in HD. Thanks for your earlier response.

Oh- you are capturing SD recordings, not HD? The camera does support that (and also supports in-camera transcoding from the HD to SD DV AVI format...)

Not sure how HDVSplit works with that, if at all, though...

You should be able to capture the SD DV AVI files from your old MiniDV tapes no problem from firewire, just treat it like a miniDV camcorder.
There should be a setting on the camera to switch the firewire connection to SD DV, rather than HD, which might help... should be in the system menu, firewire connection, DV/HDV setting.

The HD recordings on the Canon cameras are VERY nice, so I don't think you would regret the purchase going forward, especially how it has (should have) backward compatibility with your SD DV tapes. Both miniDV formats should be a lot easier to deal with than AVCHD cameras! Tape is sometimes slower/more awkward, but it has its own archive media

You can download the manual here:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=16206#DownloadDetailAct

You want the "Setup menu": (p23) press "FUNC" menu button, then scroll down to the bottom icon (like a little list), that is the Setup menu... or, hold down the FUNC button for >1 second, it will jump there.
You can then set the recording format for NEW recordings (DV, HDV), under "REC/In setup"; "HD Standard" can be HDV, or DV-Wide (SD) etc..
Under "PLAY/Out" setup, check "DV Output": you might want to set it for "DV Locked" for SD recordings, though it should automatically switch... (this setting will enable the HD->SD DV transcoding)... can also set the "PLAYBACK STD" to DV or HDV...

Thanks Again. Yes the camera does playback my prerecorded sd tapes and yes I do prefer the tape format over the newer alternatives. Capturing HD and SD from the same Canon camera has been my problem. I've tried every program (trials) and each one has its own issue whether its recognizing the camera or the sd formatted tape in the camera or I'll get a meessage that I have to update my display adapter with a certain program which reas havoc on my pc. I'll work it all out. Thanks for help.