New Canon Video Camera....comments?

[Teaboy1]

I am planning on a new video machine, the model will be a Canon HFS-100 due out April 09. I have noticed the retailers selling off the older spec machines (Canon HF-100) in anticipation for the new model. It is a HD flash card machine and I would welcome any comments from those of you with similar flash machines about its pro's and con's. I like the 12-burst stills option and would ask what sort of stills quality one can expect from a machine designed to take video??

This is the one, I expect a price tag around £7-800 when it hits the shops in April/May.:roll:

http://www.canon.co.uk/About_Us/News/Consumer_Releases/2009_News/LEGRIA_HFS_Camcorders.asp

Reagrds
Teaboy1

 

[Teaboy1]

How wrong am I ?? The LEGRIA HFS-10 is out now in Japan at £925 and thats the cheaper model !! Guess it will be the thick-end of 1200.......gosh.....!

 

[Teaboy1]

Yep out now at last, PC World charge 1200 quid plus a free bag and 8GB SD card. Cheaper elsewhere but without any extras, still over a grand though. I shall be placing my order soon and will keep you lot posted -200 viewers- about its performance. Already on Youtube there are a few posts showing the non-HD and HD differences, hope its all its hyped-up to be !!!

 

[richa2002]

Blimey, going to be honest, that does look like the dog's wotsits. That sort of money for a video camera is a bit too much for me though heh.

 

[Teaboy1]

Ok got 1 from Devon Camera Centre....1050...! Nice piece of kit so far....strange format it uses for video though....files are *.mts format so I will have to buy a de-coder to change to mpeg / m3p to post for those using WinMedPlayer, etc.
Like most video jobbies, I suffer terrible wind ...:roll::roll: with the standard mic but the pay-off is the ease of use.
The optical zoom is fair and the still photo is again fair, but its no substitute for a good SLR. Where it does score though is video quality being HD and the still quality ''ONLY IN'' good..... repeat..... good lighting conditions, it is let down though in poor light and and a complicated menu to choose from when setting it up. It will need some time to adapt and learn how to use it.
Given time I think it will prove very useful but need to see how the stills perform in the real world.

Any advice about mi wind problem............??
Any advice on video editing software.......??

 

[mbonwick]

For your editing, try the ffdshow codec, it can decode AVC format video, which is basically what .MTS is (MTS stands for MPEG Transport Stream)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

Particularly, take a look at the editing section, if you've already got any of the programs listed there then you should be OK if you use it in conjunction with ffdshow.

 

[Teaboy1]

Ta very much, shall look into that this weekend!

Any advice on my wind problem?? May invest in a remote mic and woolly sock. The Canon has a stereo socket for this use!:roll:

 

[mbonwick]

Fraid I can't help there, not owning a video camera myself. The only reason I'm familliar with the format is becuase a mate asked exactly the same question!

 

[Teaboy1]

Other small problems I have encountered are;
1) The 25 frames/second capture rate is possibly a handicap when I view my files on my laptop, this has possibly a 50 or 100 hz screen refresh rate and this all combines to give a bit of a jerky or jumpy picture quality. I shall try it later to burn to DVD and then see if the playback quality on the laptop is smoother but I somehow doubt it.

2) For some loony reason you have to plug the power supply into the camera before you can down load to the laptop, this obviously means you cannot do this out in the car or anywhere without 240 volt!

3) Its very memory demanding, a simple 30 second clip will consume some 180-185 MB depending on zoom or effects. Its the price of HiDef one supposes!

4) The start up is super fast, maybe 1-1.5 seconds and then point-and-shoot.

Anyone have any experience of editing software, the stock stuff is pants and I need to invest in a better editing suite, recommendations anyone???

 

[richa2002]

I recommend Sony Vegas for editing and if the picture is jerky whilst viewing the files with Canon's supplied viewer, it unfortunately means your laptop is not up to showing such high resolution footage. 50 and 100hz are all multiples of 25 so should be fine as far as I know.

 

[Teaboy1]

Yes just run a piece of video while watching processor in Task Manager and its running at 100% while streaming the video content. My laptop is a dual-core 2.1 Ghz machine.....but its too slowhock: Looks like I need a faster processor.........knew it was process hungry ( the camera software ) but thought 2.1 GHz was up to the job !!

Still shall try the edit software and save up for a quad-core machine they should be along soon knowing Intel !!

 

[mbonwick]

Still shall try the edit software and save up for a quad-core machine they should be along soon knowing Intel !!

Core2Quad processors have been out for only a few weeks less than Core2Duo and Core2 processors.

The current "must haves" are the i7 series....1366 pins rather than 775.
It's still a quad core, but can handle 8 threads, so appears like 8 separate processors. Also uses DDR3 RAM..so 3,6,9 or 12GB combinations.

 

[Teaboy1]

Just done a search in Dell.com for ' i7 ', only comes back with monster XPS desktop that needs a fork lift truck to move it about, wont be long now before we see 415v 3-phase power supply and cooling water as site requirements !!

I like my portable laptop so guess I shall have to wait until Dell engineer a portable with a 12volt a/c cooling compressor and condenser plus fan that will cool a laptop i7 !!:roll:

So this is progress ???

Shall get the Sony Vagas from Amazon about £60 and also see about converting *.mts to *.avi format for general use, very handy to have the raw images as HD. Meanwhile I have a second laptop I intend to use with only XP installed, no other junk once I get PIXELA registered I can just run the application without all the other garbage, typically about 20 processes rather than 55>65 processors, see if that helps the situation.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Right then, my home pc laptop is an Intel Centrino Pentium M Processor 2.13 GHz .....and its too slow to give smooth playback. My work laptop is an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz and it can stream the video no problem at some 45 % processor usage while the Pentium cannot stream the video even at 100% processor usage....!
So I dont yet need the i7 Intel just yet, just make sure your processor is not too old and slow!!

 

[mbonwick]

Well, the key bit is the Centrino.
Centrino is Intel using up hte old processors. So istead of being 2 years old, the design is probably more like 5 or 6 years old.
Never ever buy Centrino. The model is older and ****ter than you think.

 

[Teaboy1]

The CENTRINO lapdog is ancient, had it from Dell about 2004/5 but it serves as a general office pc used for basic homework, surfing and email's, etc.
However.....and heres what I now find is that even the Core2 Duo cannot keep up......but when I run on battery power the processors at 45%. .....BUT when I'm on the battery charger using mains power, it too cannot stream the video correctly!!! What I do find is that my INC (internal network card) is active when on mains power and so I assume it must conflict somewhere with the demands of the processor. Dell use some software called 'Quickset' as a power management suite for the laptop in portable or fixed mode and appears to 'interfere' with the video. Run on battery power alone, it streams the video perfectly at 45% cpu.

One short fall I have found with this camera is the general image sharpness on names/numbers of moving objects ie locos and wagons, etc. I also find it (the Canon) has a tendency to focus on little branches or twigs on the foreground when Im wanting to shoot a train. The twig is in perfect focus but the subject in soft focus. Simple answer is to pack the nippers when I go out and do some pruning. Otherwise its a great little machine!!

Just have to disable the INC when I playback!!

 

[mbonwick]

I'd be surprised if it was the INC affecting playback and not some other feature only enabled when on mains power.

 

[Teaboy1]

Its purely academic because whatever is causing it stops whenever I run on battery power....and I dont think DELL would have a faster processor clock speed on battery power rather than mains power.
Anyway, tried the ALIVE HD Video convertor download, its a trial version that will only do 60% of your file......so its pants unless I buy it/register it for 29.99. Anyway it does convert the file OK but I had trouble choosing the correct aspect ratio, all my images were squashed up by x% so I have sacked it off.
Placed my money for Sony Vegas Movie Pro Platinum 9 and a spare battery form Hong Kong, comes with a car cig lighter type charger which should be handy. Going to start a new thread on filters!!
TB1

 

[Teaboy1]

OK got my Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum ......gordon bennett......its complex!! All I wanted to do was cut out the rubbish bits, delete some audio and add a bit of music buts its not that simple. Classic case of RTM....!!













Read The Manual.....................

 

[Teaboy1]

Anyone have experience with Sony Vagas Movie Pro.....because I'm getting nowhere with it?

I now try to keep it simple with no-edit where possible. Here is today's effort...? Its in HD so you should be able to view it in full screen mode for best effect. Its a steamer I'm afraid to say but the location has great potential I think.....if only I could close the old A1 for a few hours..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbxMIIb8wM4

 

[richa2002]

Well it's basically just a timeline format which should be pretty intuituve?

 

[Teaboy1]

OK so how do I dub an audio track onto a video track........and its not a piece of music, a .mpeg or a .wav! I would be able to get my head around the timeline but its the adding and splitting of audio that I find difficult.