Can folks elaborate on your favorite settings for framerates and color settings ?

I understand it will depend on what's being shot, but I am new to video recording and with this new device (Hf100), I don't feel like shooting just in Auto mode.

I also find interesting that although the camera has 24p, 30p, 60i, if you look at Canon's marketing literature on this, it seems to highlight only 24p Cinema Mode and 30p Progressive. They don't seem to highlight 60i at all.

I guess they dont highlight 60i since its common to all other cameras. Anyways, the framerates / shutter speeds u choose will really depend on the person and what they want to achieve. But generally speaking, i would choose 60i for most stuff, 24/30p for more still/steady shots or tripod shots and 30p if that video is purely for uploading to the net, since it will not require deinterlacing it will be easier to encode. But just remember that the 60i captures information every 1/60 second (as opposed to 1/24 and 1/30 seconds of the progressive modes) and can be deinterlaced to full 60fps on your PC for very smooth motion that will suit fast paced shots.

Again, its all upto you, just experiment around, try all settings, dont be shy

I've done a bit of playing on a Mac.

24p is useless on the Mac. iMovie, Final Cut Express, and (only at an Apple Store) Final Cut Pro all refuse to import the 24p source material at 24p. iMovie and FCE convert to Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) which increases file size by about 10x if you import at full 1080. But it also imports as 60i! (This also makes 30p and PAL's 25p pointless.) 24p content converted to this looks HORRIBLE. (Well, it's better than standard definition DV, but it's really choppy.) If I plan in importing as full 1080, I just use 60i.

But, if you use iMovie's "Large" size, which reduces the resolution to half: 960x540, it makes it 30p. So 24p (and PAL's 25p) are still pointless, but 30p becomes usable. I haven't noticed any major quality differences between 60i and 30p when imported as 960x540/30p; nor is there any noticeable improvement in import/transcode time. So it's just a matter of preference then. (If you'll be in lower-light, 30p recording would do better.)

Sorry if they offends anyone
But as a long time Vegas Video user and a recent (year and a half +) mac user I recommend you use boot camp (if you have an intel core mac which is likely if you're working with 1080 video) and (gasp) install XP then run Vegas Pro.

First off, Vegas is great and secondly, being able to work on your raw files natively (though the previews can be choppy, but who cares) is a HUGE plus. Vegas is pretty easy to use for beginners and has some power features for intermediate to advanced users. There are even smartish tutorials which will guide you through the lessons. it supports many output formats and framerates. Oh, and you can take the mts files right off your camera and edit them w/o any kind of conversion or capturing. I guess I mentioned that already.

If bootcamp scares you, you CAN run Vmware Fusion or Parallels to do editing, I've tried and they both work decently (fusion is much quicker) but overall you are going to be slower than booting into native windows.

One major downside:
iMovie pre-loaded on my Mac: $0, or, at worst:
iMovie '08 purchased: $79
Total: $0-$80ish

Windows XP Home OEM: $85
Vegas Pro: $450
Total: $535ish.

Sorry, but no. Native mts editing would be nice, but not $535 nice.