Canon Elura 100 Camcorder Reviewby James MurrayPublished on Mar 31, 2006 9:00 AM 
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Compression (8.0)
When shooting with the Canon Elura 100 (Specs, $379.19), the compression level for video footage recorded to MiniDV cassette tape will be the standard 25 Mbps rate. This slight compression is what currently makes the MiniDV format superior to the heavily compressed footage (8 Mbps) recorded with hard disk drive and DVD format camcorders. At nearly twice the price, DVD camcorders are nowhere near the video quality found on low-end point-and-shoot MiniDV camcorders. This disparity should make users concerned about video quality and budget think twice before looking at a DVD camcorder.
The Canon Elura 100 can also record both video and stills to SD memory card. On the SD memory card, stills are saved as JPEG files in compression levels of SuperFine, Fine and Normal, while video files are recorded as motion JPEGs with audio data saved as monaural WAVE files.
Media (8.0)
The Canon Elura 100 records video footage to 6.35mm MiniDV cassette tapes. Although not included with the purchase of the camcorder, MiniDV tapes are not expensive and can be purchased nearly anywhere that electronics and camcorders are sold. The price of a single MiniDV tape is still far lower than that of a DVD, and considering that recording time for 8cm DVDs in their highest quality setting is approximately 18 minutes, the MiniDV tape is a far better option not only in video quality but also in terms of recording time. The user of the Elura 100 can also capture video clips and still images to SD memory cards.
Editing (8.0)
The Canon Elura 100 does come with included software, but the ZoomBrowser EX 5.5, PhotoRecord 2.2, DV TWAIN Driver 6.6, and DC WIA Driver for Windows Me 6.4 took a bit of finagling and a good forty-five minutes to properly install and get to work. Note: Macintosh users will only have access to Canon’s ImageBrowser 5.5 software application.
Initial installation of this software was unsuccessful and required restructuring the PC driver setup with heavy consultation of the Help Me feature before trying again. The time required for installation and the problems encountered with Canon software were unlike the Sony and Panasonic software included with their MiniDV camcorders, which installed easily and recognized camcorder connection to PC without any effort on the part of the user.
Once the Elura 100’s software was installed and the camcorder was recognized by the software for capture, the Canon software presented a simple palette of editing options for both still images and video footage. Images and footage are displayed as either single images or as a multi-up thumbnail file display that appear in folders, and when scrolled over, individual files will be highlighted and displayed in a larger temporary picture window. In scroll mode, individual files are displayed as a list with a handful of examples on the right side, while the left side displays the folder name. The third view provides a preview display with file information pertaining to date, image type and size, amongst other parameters. In this mode, folders are displayed along the bottom of the screen while single selected images are displayed on the rest of the screen.
The Canon software also includes a handful of digital effects. While neither the effects nor the editing capabilities can match software like PhotoShop, Final Cut Pro, Premiere or Avid, it also doesn’t have the price of these more advanced and resplendent editing programs.