Well, I just got a camcorder upgrade to HD last week. I did a lot of reading for a long time and in the end got a Canon HF100. The only thing I gave up on that I wanted was time lapse video (like some of the Sony's have). There's some really great videos and reviews up on that camcorder on YouTube. It's amazing - I really love it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16830120239

At the highest quality level an 8Gig card will capture 1 hour of video. I think the memory card only camcorders are the way to go. They're so small and light. The battery that comes with it lasts one hour, chargest thorugh the camcorder (external charger $60) and takes 2.5 hours to fully charge (external charger charges twice as fast).

I do have a PS3 and by default you can stream a MTS (AVCHD) file to it or stick the file on a thumb drive (even transfer the files to the PS3's hard drive). They look amazing. The HD quaily of this camcorder is amazing.

Power Director 7 has no problems working with the raw AVCHD files at all. The only thing is I do have a quad core processor and I've read it does take a good deal of CPU power to deal with these HD files. PD7 responds very well to them.

The problem I'm having right now is what I would consider a quality problem with AVCHD being converted to HQ DVD's in Power Director (for family memebers without Blu-Ray players). I'm still playing around though.


Oh yeah, watch these two videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgnZO-kDdwg&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhtUvm9YdBc&fmt=18

Hi Walker,

Thanks for the great information and the links to the videos. I currently have a Canon still camera and have always liked it for quality and reliability. This camcorder sounds like something I would use and I especially like the flash memory to transfer to my computer.

I have a couple more questions if you (or someone) could answer for me:

1. The camera looked just a bit small . . . did you find that a problem as far as the stability? Ya know, sometimes you can just get TOO small!

2. When using a high definition camcorder, can you ever switch to standard definition? I can see having the same concerns that you have about sharing your video projects with people who don't have blu-ray players (like me), but I assume your HD project would play in standard definition on a regular DVD player - right? Or can PD7 convert HD to standard definition?

3. Finally, is MPEG4 going to be the new standard video format? Although I've been home video-editing for quite a while, most of my stuff has been importing from my digital tape, old analog tapes and vhs players. I do have a small Sanyo camera/camcorder that writes to a memory card, but it's just OK quality. Does MPEG4 have any drawbacks?

Thanks,
Cindy

Really you can get the same camcorder in the SD version for $299 at Walmart. Although the still images are really bad (1MP compared to 3.1MP I think) and that camcorder has digital image stabalization compared to optical. http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9219184

With the HF100 HD camcorder, almost no one carries them in store and if they do the price is $100 to $400 more than what the price is online at Newegg.com or Amazon.com. For example, Fry's Electronics lists that camcorder for $899! The price at Amazon.com floats around a lot. Right now I believe it's at $529. If you order online though it means for only $200 more you're upgrading from the SD version to the much better HD version (that can also take 3.1MP stills).

HD vs SD: Home movies are like wine. They get more valuable as time moves on (priceless really). Everyone with an LCD or Plasma TV knows that SD recordings look pretty bad on HD TV's. The only SD TV's working right now are ones that were bought at least a couple of years ago when you could still find one in a store. In 5 years almost everyone should have a BluRay player and an LCD. Why buy an SD camera at this point when SD television is almost gone?

I forgot to mention something. There are two models that are the same thing: The HF10 and the HF100. The HF100 is silver and has no built in memory. The HF10 is black and has 16G built in (plus a card slot). The thing is the HF10 is like $150 more than the HF100 and you can order a 16GB card online for something like $40. It's much cheaper to get the HF100.

1. The image stablization I'm really impressed with. My last camcorder only had digital image stabalization where the camera filmed a larger area than it recorded and used that as a buffer area to stabilize the picture (Power Directors built in feature uses the same method). The HF100 has optical image stabalization where the lens is suspended in a floating frame. Without a tripod, this camcorder seems more stable that any other I've used before. It seems to remove all the tiny twitchy hand shakes but you'll still see the larger movements without a tripod.

2. Some HD camcorders do let you record in SD. The HF100 does not as far as I know. With PD7 all you have to do is drop the raw MTS file from the memory card onto a timeline, then burn the project as a HQ DVD. I've already done that a couple of times and played the burned DVD in a standard DVD player (no worries there).

3. Everything I've read over the last couple of weeks when camcorder researching indicated AVCHD (a MPEG4 wrapper slash file structure) is going to be the standard for HD camcorders. The only thing I can think of is that it may go through improvements changing perhaps a version number for it. I just got the feeling it's going to be around for years.

The only negative is I'm trying to learn up on now is that this camcorder is really a 1080i camcorder. Right now as far as I know there's only one camcorder that uses AVCHD that actually records in real 720p. It's mentioned on the AVCHD wiki. The issue is the combing effect that can be seen if you try to watch the raw videos on a computer (or maybe even a TV LCD, although that doesn't seem to be a problem for me).

The HF100 does have a Cinema 24p mode and there are ways to process the video to get around that problem. I'm really just learning but I have seen it. It's kind of like if you pan the camcorder, when watching the raw file on a PC you can see the combing effect where the lines seperate. Although on both of my TV LCD's, the raw file plays perfectly. I guess any 720p or 1080p LCD can deal with 1080i or 720i properly.

You can directly connect the HF100 to an LCD TV for playback through an HDMI port. The cable isn't included though.

CONS
-The HF100 only records in 16:9 (only a con if you still have family with old 4:3 tube TV's really)
-The included software is horrid, it's not even wise to load it
-You'll only see the true HD quality of this camcorder with it playing back directly to an LCD or burning a Blu-Ray disk (Blu-Ray format on a standard DVD), or on a PC.
-You have to learn how to deal with the AVCHD file format
-You may have to learn to deal with the interlaced nature of the records by using inverse telesync (etc). Although by simply burning DVD's with Power Director seems to work fine.
-Unlike DV tapes (that last a long time), burned DVD's have a shorter shelf life and are very easily damaged. With a memory card only camcorder you really need to keep a backup copy of your videos (the raw MTS files). Personally, I have a 750GB external drive (a tiny one that uses a laptop drive as most do now). Every so often, I backup all my important documents and then put that whole external drive in my fire safe. If my computer hard drive dies or the whole house burns down, I'm still covered. At the highest recording quality, one hour of file will consume 8GB of data. That means on (say) a 500GB external drive you could keep close to 62 hours of video (minus overhead).


The only required additional purchase is a memory card (not included),

ADDITIONAL COSTS
-- Memory Cards(s). For the highest recording level the cards need to be Class 4 or better. "Classes" on SDHC cards refer to how fast information can be transfered to them. Either Class 4 or Class 6 cards will work. Class 4 cards are cheaper though so you'd want to really look for and buy class 4 cards only. I ordered a couple of these ($20) and later noticed Walmart carries the exact same thing in store for $34 (online vs retail.. jeez) :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178151
--$60 for the external charger (which does charge the battery twice as fast) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16830998692&Tpk=30-998-692
--$94 for the extra battery that's suppose to last 2.5 hours (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16830998660)
--$20 or more for an HDMI cable. This camcorder uses a mini HDMI connector on it's body, so you need a quality "mini HDMI to HDMI" cable. Not all of them will work well with the camcorder. I ordered this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812191098&Tpk=12-191-098
--$70 or more for an external USB hard drive to back up your video files if you want to keep those safe from something like a hard drive crash or fire

Wow, Walker, that was a very in-depth answer.

Thanks for taking the time!

Jeff

I thought of a couple more things about the HF100:
-No infared recording (night vision)
-The shoe is a minature type that can limit what you have to choose from as far as shoe mounted lights and mics are concerned (although there is a mic jack too)
-The built in light is weak (as most are now - they're all LCD lights). It only helps if something is 3 feet or less away

Plus:
-There are filter threads on the HF100 (they SD version has no threads)



I have really bad OCD when I buy electronics. I actually get stressed out. I bought that camcorder after two solid weeks of reading.

I think it's a three step process really:

1) Are you willing to order online?

If not you are looking at higher prices in most cases, and the more expensive the camcorder the greater the difference in price can be. You're also much more limited in what options you have. Most retail stores don't carry hardly any HD models right now as well.

2) Do you want HD or SD?

I think that's really a price range question. Camcorders aren't cheap and I doubt the majority of people looking at one would really want to go over $300. SD really does not look good on LCD TV's. But, you can work around that (with Power Director) by doing such as putting the video on a PIP track at a smaller size, and then adding a PIP frame around that smaller sized video on a 2nd PIP track. I've tried that and it comes out very nice. The only flaw is with using transitions where you really need the video to be on the main track. You can then process that as a file and use that file as your main video track. Then the problem is your re-encoding your video more than one time (which may not even make a noticable difference in picture quality - but it could make a big difference as well).

3) What recording media type do you want?

-DVD: You're going to need a supply of the DVD's and burned DVD's do not have a long shelf life. They are also easily damaged. One small scratch can cause a lot of problems. The camera size will be bigger and the battery power needs will also be bigger. Also, the DVD lens can become mis-aligned and or dirty. You also have moving parts that could break. I think the DVD (mini-DVD) is the worst option. Althogh there are combo models that also write to SD cards

-Hard Drives: I think this is the second worst option. Most camcorders do not have drives that are easily changable by the consumer. They also need a fairly good amount of power and can break. They will make the camera larger and a good deal more heavy. On the plus side, they hold hours of HQ video. But, you have to go through the camcorder to get the video out (unlike putting a mini DVD or SDHC card in your computer). It will take longer to copy the videos to your computer. The thing that makes them look really bad is that most of the Hard Drive camcorders are in the 30GB to 120GB size range but you can get a 32GB SDHC card for $30 or a little more online. Three 16GB cards will do the same thing as a 120GB version. Why pay the extra price for the extra size and weight when the same money will get you an equal number for SDHC cards? (seriously, why even sell a 30GB Hard Drive camcorder - that's a joke).

-DV Tape: Moving parts, more battery power and larger camera size. The biggest advantage is they have the best shelf life (it will take years and years for the analog signal to degrade to a point where the 1's and 0's can't be read). Although, you're always going to need a working camcorder to get the information on those DV Tapes out. What happens when 10 years from now that camcorder breaks and it's been 5 years since anyone has made a DV Tape camcorder (ebay probably). Another thing is that DV Tapes are very cheap and you'll need a steady supply of them unless you re-use them.

*when you look around, a lot of people still swear by DV Tape and thumb their noses at SDHC camcorders.

-SDHC (flash cards): I think the only dis-advantage is that you will always need to remove and store (and backup) the video files. Everything else is an advantage (no moving parts, smaller camcorder, lighter camcorder). Online you can get a 8GB card for $19 or a 16GB card for $30 (class 4). 8GB will get you 1 hour at the highest quality setting. So, you may have to look at having a few 8GB cards (or something like that ) if you're going on vacation where you may get 3 hours of film or more.

Hi Walker -

Again, thank you for all that good information! I've even passed your thoughts onto a friend that is also interested in a new camcorder . . .

Can I borrow your OCD brain again for a few more questions?

1. OK, say I buy this HD camcorder with the flash memory. I'm a little concerned that this HD video is just going to gobble up all my free hard drive space. Do you have any idea how many MB of say, 1 hour of HD video takes, as compared to standard definition?

2. Next question . . . I pull everything into PD7, edit, add music, etc. When I get ready to burn it, do I have to have have a special DVD burner or special DVDs to produce the final video?

3. Finally, you mentioned a fast CPU . . . I have a Pentium D 2.8 GHz with 1.5 GB of RAM running XP. It's a couple of years old, but I have resisted getting a new one because I'm still not completely sold on VISTA yet. I have VISTA on my laptop and it just doesn't seem to be as stable as XP at this point even with all the service packs.

I think that's all for now!
Thanks,
Cindy

Hi Cindy,

It's not everyone's 'cup of tea' but check out the Sanyo VPC HD1010.

Full HD@60 and 30fps, 720p@60 and 30fps, 640x480 @60 and 30fps, 448x336(strange, I know)@300fps gives 50secs of slo-mo, 320x240 @30fps.

10x optical zoom, 100x digital, integral flash, external mic and ear phones, manual white balance +presets

3.5 to 8 Mp stills, very small, pistol grip style, operated with one hand virtually all controls operated by one thumb.

SDHC card media about 1hr 30min full HD on an 8Gb card, max 32Gb. Produces .MP4 files - I have no problems with PD7 editing. I love not having to capture, just copy files - it's great.

Docking station designed to couple with hard drive library facilities and playback through HD TV (never tried it yet so....)

Downsides :-
Small and therefore camera shake needs watching (as it does with any HD)
Slowish focus, some people don't like the colour balance although it can be adjusted.
Not as high end as some models but here in the UK it's good value.

Feel free to check out the output on some of the videos on my seemyworld and youtube channels. All the HD stuff is with this camera. All the SD stuff is with the Olympus compact.

As I say, not to everyone's taste but worth checking out - depending on what you need. PM me if you have anything specific you need to know.

Cheers
Adrian




Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

1) One hour of best quality video from the Canon HF100 takes exactly 8 Gigabytes. When you can go grab (if needed) an external 750GB Hard Drive for a hundred or less, it's nothing to worry about. Like I said, almost 64 hours of HD 1920x1080 (best quality) video will fit on 500GB of free space. If you don't have that kind of space, it's not hard to find a cheap USB 2.0 external hard drive (or and another internal drive)

2) If you're working with a HD video file (AVCHD .mts file) in PD7, you can burn the project to a normal + or - R DVD as a HQ DVD. The catch is that HQ DVD will be of much less quality that the original video (and it will be processed to the new resolution (etc) which can make it look even worse). It still should look as good as any SD camera that records at 720x480 (top SD resolution).

Standard DVD players can upscale but the real quality is 480P max. A lot of standard DVD players say they are 1080P but that only means they upscale (stretch really) the 720x480 resolution to a higher resolution. The best up-scaling uses techniques that blend in the missing information making the final product look much better. The Cannon HF100 at max quality records at 1080i or 1920x1080. That should mean that at best (even if unconverted) a standard DVD player will only be able to show 1/6th of the detail the camcorder records. That's about 17% the quality (It's time for standard DVD's to go...)
The best thing to do is to get a HD camcorder and deal with SD playback for a year. Right now a decent Blu-Ray player will cost about $250 online. A 40G PS3 is $299. At this time it's actually better to get a PS3 just for the Blu-Ray player. I've got a very strong feeling that a year from now we will see $100 Blu-Ray players. The format war is over and a lot of the market is becoming aware of the difference in Blu-Ray and standard DVD's. If you just spent money on a nice 42" or bigger LCD and then you find out normal DVD's will only take advantage of a fraction of the possible detail level... that's not cool.
Anyway, get an HD camcorder now. Deal with burning off standard lower quality DVD's and in a year go get a $100 BluRay player (unless you feel like spending $250 now - hey BluRay movies are amazing). Then you can burn 20 minute (single sided) or 40 minute (dual layer) standard blank DVD's in the HD AVCHD format that will play on any Blu-Ray player (considering a resolution of 1920x1080).

When you go to burn a diskselect (with a DVD - or + R blank disk)
-Disc Format: AVCHD
-Disc Capacity: 4.7GB
-Video Quality: 1920x1080 (defaults to 1440x1080)


3. Vista is great. Most of the complaints about it are hot air. It does require more system resourses, but I should hope so as XP is something like 7 years old now. If you really are considering a HD camcorder, at some point you'd really want to look at a quad-core processor. A dual core is fine but quad-core processors were born to deal with video processing.

The difference compared to what you currently have will be something like 4 hours to process a movie before burning to 15 mintues of processing before burning. Also, with a much shorter processing time, you'll have much less chance of an error. You're going to want a 4GB system as well. 2GB really barely gets you by.

You could see what you're dealing with right now. Here's how:

-Download a 720p HD sample from Microsoft from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx
-Dump that into a Power Director project
-Add it a few times until you get up to 10 minutes total
-Burn the project using the settings I mentioned above (AVCHD) to a DVD +/- R
---Disc Format: AVCHD
---Disc Capacity: 4.7GB
---Video Quality: 1920x1080 (defaults to 1440x1080)

How long did that take? I have no real idea but divide that amount of time by (say) 5 and that's how much faster a quad core system would have finished the processing. Quad Core's deal with other processes running at the same time much better as well.

You can get a nice 2.4Ghz or higher Quad-Core system with 4GB of RAM for well under $1000.

I am editing with footage from Panasonic SD9 and Canon HF100. The audio is better on the Pana but the video is slightly better on the Canon (especially lower light - the hype about CMOS is true).
XP is fine for PD but PentiumD 2.8 won't be suitable for AVCHD. I agree with Walker (even though a fast Core 2 will do the job) I would stick to a quad.