Canon HF10 First Impressions Camcorder Reviewby Alfredo PadillaPublished on Jan 15, 2008 4:00 PM
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Compression
The Canon Vixia HF10 is another notch in AVCHD’s record of rapid growth in the consumer camcorder market. The HF10 improves over the HG10 and HR10 by offering recording at full HD (1920 x 1080) and ups the maximum bitrate to 17Mbps, slightly higher than the 16Mbps that Sony is offering in their new camcorder lineup. You can also record at 12 Mbps (XP+), 7Mbps, (SP) and 5Mbps (LP). The increase in maximum bitrate should help alleviate some issues we’ve seen in the AVCHD format like trailing and artifacting, but we’ll see when we get it into the labs.
Media
Canon’s approach for high definition in the last year has been to take an imaging system they like and then roll it out into a series of camcorders with different formats. The HV20 (and now HV30) are the HDV models, the HR10 is the DVD model, and the HG10 is the hard drive model. The HF10 is the last product in the lineup and records to flash memory. The HF10 has both 16GB of internal flash memory and also supports recording to SDHC cards. Using the built-in memory you can record 2 hours 5 minutes at the highest quality (FXP, 1920 x 1080 at 17Mbps). Stepping down you can get 2 hours 50 minutes at XP+, 4 hours 45 minutes at SP and 6 hours 5 minutes at LP. You can obviously increase the recording time by adding an SDHC card, which are currently available up to 16GB in size and we should see 32GB cards in mid-2008. Unfortunately if you run out of storage space in either your card or internal memory the Canon Vixia HF10 won’t transition to the other storage medium on the fly. Instead you’ll have to do it manually via the menu system.
Editing
Your options for editing AVCHD footage have improved remarkably over the past year. PC users can choose between Ulead Video Studio 11 and Pinnacle Studio 11. Sony Vegas 8.0 also supports AVCHD editing but will only work with Sony camcorders. Mac users can choose between iMovie ’08 and Final Cut Express 4. We recommend you check compatibility with any software you purchase because even though AVCHD is standardized the codecs are tweaked just enough between manufacturers to cause problems with some editing software.
The Canon Vixia HF10 ships with Canon Digital Video Solutions and Corel Application Disc version 1.0, which includes Corel GuideMenu, InterVideo WinDVD SE, Ulead DVD Movie Factory SE and DVD Movie Writer SE. This is a good set of application to import, edit, and author movies for the web or DVD, but processing times are slow and your editing options are limited.
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