*Official* AVCHD Camcorder's Thread

annaconda

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
Messages
9,925
Alright Guys, Canon recently launched the Canon HG10 HD HDD camcorder. Sony has already HDR SR5, SR7 camcorders.

I know many of you already owned them and many of you want to buy them.

So i would like to share my experience ( Just Bought CANON HG10) and, would love to hear from all you guys about your experience with these camcorders. Also what Software you guys are using to Edit, Burn or whatever for this FORMAT.

It would be also nice, if we can share some Movie clips, from these camcorders.

Well let the sharing begins, every thought is more than welcome. :D


Well Known Softwares for Editing:

1. Pinacle Studio 11
2. Sony Vegas 7e
3. Corel Ulead Video Studio 11
4. Ulead’s DVD MovieFactory 6
5. Apple Final Cut Pro.
6. Adobe Premiere Pro.
7. Canopus Edius Pro
8. Sony Vegas 8 (New)

FREE Softwares:

1. Canopus (.m2ts files to the Canopus HQ Codec (.avi)

2. VIDEO 1 (24P)

3. lowlight Video 24P
 
You're going to have a hell of a time trying to find a way to do advanced editing with AVCHD footage.. very poor choice IMO. You should have went with a miniDV HD camcorder that does HDV. (Canon XH-A1 or XL-H1). You also have the ability to have XLR audio, advanced image tuning, actual real manual white balancing, etc. If you are going with an HD camcorder, at least have the ability to make it look right without a cheap camera trying to auto adjust all your settings for you. It is like the difference between having a $200 point and shoot camera digital and a DSLR. Audio-wise, it is the difference between having a $5 logitech microphone, and having the ability to throw any type microphone on you want on there, even in the 4-digit price range or wireless lavalieres. If you are spending the money on an HD camcorder, getting something that you actually have control over and with expandable options is the way to go.

Anyhow, if you must stick with the AVC consumer camcorder, the only editing application that I know of that works with that footage is Edius by Canopus. It is in my opinion the best editing software on the market at the moment. I've tried all different editing solutions working in a TV studio as one of my jobs, and I can tell you its the best I've worked with. Easiest to use, most stable, most compatible, most advanced options, best plugins and filters.
 
I have a Sony and use Sony Vegas to edit and it works great. There is more software available than listed by the above poster, i've tried 4 different editing software packages for this format, and while all worked, Sony Vegas worked best for my needs. Not to mention once you output an avi file you can edit again using other programs (most of which will support the format later down the road as per their sites). It's a newer format, so software is slow, same as with new hardware drivers and so on. I love my SR-5!
 
Pinacle Studio 11 can also edit AVCHD, works with all HD HDD camcorders. Well i am surprise by the w1retap review, i mean all over the web Canon HG10 is getting praise, and they are saying it has better video quality then HV20, so what is the point with going with HV20.

Not to mention the pain of changing tapes all the time, plus you cannot edit videos until you completely fill the tape drive.
 
Not to mention the pain of changing tapes all the time, plus you cannot edit videos until you completely fill the tape drive.
MiniDV allows for a higher bitrate, and you can edit the footage whenever you want. You don't have to wait until you 'fill' a tape. :p
 
Just bought a Canon XHG1...still in the box.
 
Mini DV allows higher bit rate ? where did you read that ?
It is well known in the industry.

Canon HG-10 = Movie Recording: ACVHD (MPEG-4 AVCH/H.264: 5/7/9/15 Mbps)

MiniDV Tape = 20mbit @ 720p or 30mbit at 1080i (HDV)
 
Thought I would throw out that Nero Ultra has got a simple and easy to use AVCHD suite, including outputting to a burning an HD-DVD.

MiniDV allows for a higher bitrate, and you can edit the footage whenever you want.

I would expect you, of all people, to know that AVC doesn't need higher bitrates.
 
I would expect you, of all people, to know that AVC doesn't need higher bitrates.

AVC is compressed further and gets macroblocking if you pan too fast, even at their max bitrates. MiniDV shooting HDV doesn't do it, and you even have the option to shoot uncompressed.
 
I am still on the fence about HD video. My desire for full 1080P recording outstrips my pocketbook's capabilities...by a considerable margin. :D
 
Well all the reviews i read about Canon HG10 says, it is better than HV20. Canon HG10 is available $921 from Buy.com, if you make their credit card you will get additional $30 off which brings the price down to $891 with free shipping, you cannot beat that. :D
 
So if im looking at a HD cam mainly for family videos and maybe some car/track video from in car views, and i have about 1k to spend. Would that HG10 be the best bet?


I know a lot about dSLR still photography, but this is my first foray into video cam technology and i feel a bit overwhelmed with info.
 
So if im looking at a HD cam mainly for family videos and maybe some car/track video from in car views, and i have about 1k to spend. Would that HG10 be the best bet?


CANON HG10 Best HD Camcorder Out there. Google it and you will find there are alots of reviews.
 
You know what i am talking about W1retap. Just add the Sony Vega 8 (upcoming)
Well you just said "best camcorder out there". By far it is not, and I wanted to clarify because I've ran across some people on here that wouldn't know any different. When people are spending decent amounts of money, they might be interested in what all is available. The lack of manual control over a consumer level video camera makes it very far from being 'the best' IMO.
 
Well you just said "best camcorder out there". By far it is not, and I wanted to clarify because I've ran across some people on here that wouldn't know any different. When people are spending decent amounts of money, they might be interested in what all is available. The lack of manual control over a consumer level video camera makes it very far from being 'the best' IMO.

lol, w1retap you just don;t want to give up do you ? My friend you should read my statement correctly i said best AVCHD camcorder. This is AVCHD camcorder thread, why are you keep talking about different camcorders. Why don;t you get it ?

If you don;t like then please stop posting and thread crapping.
 
CANON HG10 Best HD Camcorder Out there. Google it and you will find there are alots of reviews.

Quoted. No sign of AVCHD. You said "Best HD Camcorder Out there."

The Greddy Honda Odyssey is the best car out there.















Oh, I meant modded mini-vans secretly.
 
We are talking about technical shit here. This is [H]forums. You cannot be so vague and expect people to know what you are talking about.
 
We are not professionals here my friend.

So that is true for everyone here? There are quite a few people on these boards who work with prosumer and professional video equipment, including myself.

For that matter, we on [H] set ourselves so far apart from the mainstream computer user, we could call ourselves professional computer users with far more knowledge than the general public. We build our own computers and do some amazing things with them.

Generalizations FTL.
 
Well here is a .mts file from CANON HG10. You guys can run it with Nero Player. It can give you some idea about the picture quality. I will post some more later.


Link to the file
 
Quality looks great annaconda. It really is a shame that w1retap came in to the thread and mucked it up with his "pro sumer" opinions. The thread is clearly marked the "Official AVCHD" thread .. and all he wanted to do is force more expensive pro sumer product down everyones throat. Oh well, that was like 6 months ago. Hopefully he's grown since then. At any rate, congratulations on your purchase.

Official Point & Shoot Camera thread:
w1retap: USE DSLR!!
 
lol..

People are always expecting something for nothing. When you work with higher end stuff all the time, you really see what a difference there is. When you're the consumer, often times it's really hard to see or even justify spending more. People ask questions and I'll state my opinion. Take it however you want. I shouldn't be the one to tell someone how to spend their money, but I can sure make suggestions if they ask.

But that test clip really shows us nothing. It was totally just winged on the fly like any ol' kid who would whip out a camera from their pocket and hit record. There's no shot composition or anything that gives us an idea of what the camera is capable of. There are overexposed areas in the shot that cause the auto focus to freak out because the auto iris is being used when the sun is going down and shooting it from a 90 degree angle. The colors for that time of year in the area chose to do the test clip give us no idea of the color depth capability of the camera. etc, etc, etc.
 
Oh i forget to mention that was with 24P. I have read almost all the reviews about CANON-HG10 and every one was saying 24P does not work on the camera, i don;t see any shuttering here. :confused:


W1retap i will post more clips later :)
 
I'm looking forward to some more clips. It looks like a pretty good consumer level camera, especially at the price point it's selling for currently. I'm sure if you take your time to setup a good shot with proper lighting and proper camera settings, it would look very nice. Oh yeah.. and use a tripod please. :p Slow fluid pans and steady zooms.
 
I'm in the market for a HD cam. I've done some research and I've got my eye on the HV20, but now after reading this thread people are saying the HG10 is a better choice. Is there really a big difference between the two cams or is it just based on personal reasons?
 
Final Cut Studio 6 (Final Cut Studio 2) and Final Cut Express 4 can edit AVCHD. iMovie '08 can convert it into a different format for editing but doesn't support directly editing it. I'm willing to guess that some form of AVID would also be able to edit AVCHD.
 
how about that HF10? im looking for something that has 24p and is NOT miniDV. is the HF10 best choice around $1K?
 
w1retap - I think if someone knows how to use a camera, they can get good results out of HV10/20's

The point is, the image quality between HV20's and Prosumer cameras is very small... the manual control, and other features that come with prosumer cameras are why people buy them...

They're consumer cameras for a reason... :p

I have an HDR-FX7... it's still considered consumer by Sony and it goes for $2500... the image quality between that and the HV10 I had before is very small, I shot outdoors anyways and at higher shutter speeds, HDV compression sucks balls for both cameras, and I think that's just a problem with HDV.

I like Mini-DV because I can save all the footage onto a solid-medium (tapes for $2 a tape) and then capture the footage with HDV-Split and store it on my server (Running at about 800 gigs of raw footage so far) the disadvantage being dropouts, but I've had maybe 20 dropouts total over ~100+ tapes. that's 1/2 a second of footage lost, never anything critical.
 
Here at work we've had a couple of HD cams and lots of experience with consumer grade stuff (read: crap, but it's getting way better).

We recently got a Sony PMW-EX1, and it's all over. Top notch all the way. Dynamic range, Color, nothing matches it for the price ($$$). No doubt in my mind, best of the best until you get higher in the professional range. Had a panny 200 before and it was a decent HD cam, but the operator hated it and didn't like the image.

For TV stations going to HD, the EX1 is the new PD-170 (benchmark camera for SD news), unless they go to XDCAM (popular option). The cards do kind of suck though, pricewise. But the lack of tape mechanism is worth SOOO much.
 
Well I just got my wife a Canon Vixia HG21. I cant wait to start using it as the "official" family camcorder.

We we have been using a Sony Digital Handycam DCR-TRV110 for the last 10 years.

I took some quick videos after getting the cam, and OMG!!!

Yes, I am a Video n00b. But I was just not ready to grasp the diff between what we had, and what we will have going forward.

Thanks for creating this thread, and I will keep track of it for info on how to get the most out of our camcoder.

And those of you that are not here to provide usefull information on AVCHD please piss off ;)
 
Back
Top