If you are difficult to choice between Canon Vixia HF10/100 and Sony HDR-SR11/12, these clips will give you some ideas

Canon Vixia HF10/100
http://www.vimeo.com/910518
http://www.vimeo.com/912349
http://www.vimeo.com/965556
http://www.vimeo.com/945048
http://www.vimeo.com/936635
http://www.vimeo.com/960089
http://www.vimeo.com/945148
http://www.vimeo.com/948864
http://www.vimeo.com/937160
http://www.vimeo.com/955696
http://www.vimeo.com/945037
http://www.vimeo.com/915306
http://www.vimeo.com/973460
http://www.vimeo.com/978611

Sony HDR-SR11/12
http://www.vimeo.com/821746
http://www.vimeo.com/877859
http://www.vimeo.com/811509
http://www.vimeo.com/876374
http://www.vimeo.com/979003

If you find any good one, please add it. Thanks!

After I watched these clips, I select HF100

All the clips are excellent. The first Sony clip is amazing with the color and crispness but some of the HF100 clips (the low light one) is also very impressive. I haven't seen a side by side comparison yet but, for the money, I'd take my $650 HF100 easily on a value proposition. What I saw from both was the ability to make great, beautiful, HD video. Great compilation of clips and thanks.

$650 for 0 gb storage over $1100 for 60 gb storage is a value proposition for you?

You can't compare two cams this way. There are so many variables between the person taking the video and his skill level, differences in scenes, differences in how the cams were adjusted etc. etc. etc.

The only way you'll ever tell is to have both cams in your hand shooting the same scene at the same time. That's what I did with the HF10 and SR12.

$650 for 0 gb storage over $1100 for 60 gb storage is a value proposition for you?


yes it is a value as you are paying $450 for 60 gig of memory you can buy 8 8 gb card at $30 each thats 64gigs for $240.00 enough money to buy an external mic ... and an extended battery

http://canonvixiahf100.blogspot.com/

As far as value, I can't speak for the guy who posted it, but for me, yeah. You can get 16GB SDHC for less than $70 (times 4) = $280. Add that to the $650.... $930. Plus with the hard drive, you have more moving parts, more to go wrong. I'd hate to have to replace the hard drive.

Not to mention the less weight of the HF100 and the smaller size too.

I had a really hard time to decide between those two cams. I ended up with a SR11, but the price difference between the cams aren't that big where I live (about $250), so I might have chosen differently if I'd live in the States.

OK guys, I'll do the math for you - besides my personal preference for flash ram over a mechanical hard drive:

If you have existing SDHC cards that you use (many of us have them for various purposes) then the total expenditure is $0 beyond the camera. Let's say that isn't the case. One $16GB SDHC is around $60 and dropping (even less if you use class 4). Two 16 GB SDHC cards = $120 (now and less in the future) which brings me to $770, hundreds below the Sony. That's over 4 hours of video at the highest recording level. Most of us have no need to store that much video in one or two shoots nor will the battery support it. After taking the video, attach to laptop/PC and store it all to DVDs where I've also got multiple backup copies - and I don't need to bring the camera, just the stick.

When 32GB HDSC comes out and drops, just one stick even at $100 brings me to 64GB of storage for well under $900 - if I want it. But hey, with my existing SDHC this camera helped me shoot hours of HD video for just over $700.

I figure when I'm spending this kind of money, I tend not to use the cost of the storage media as a determination for choosing cameras. But using the math above, the 120gig internal storage of the SR12 would cost about $420 (16gig @$60X7).

I also like the flexibility of either using the internal HD or a memory stick. But in the end, as I implied above, it will always be the picture quality that gets my ultimate vote. I'll suffer the cost of whatever the media for the cam of my choice runs. :)

I hear you Ken. If you will shell out the money because the picture quality will nag you, there is no choice if it's within a few hundred dollars and you use it. I wager you do a LOT more shooting than I or others do and that makes perfect sense. I'll venture to say that anyone who is a true videophile such as yourself really needs to check both out thoroughly and decide for themselves. For my purposes as the occasional enthusiast, the HF100's price point was way too good to pass up. I never considered anything close to the $1K barrier and was thinking of getting an SLR to supplement the camcorder.

The storage math is correct and it is also determined by need and availability. If you've got other SD uses as many of us do, your 7 SD cards may be used across a couple of different devices and used for the camera when you need it. If you're a videophile and will shoot a lot of video that will sit in the camera, then having a large HD makes sense irrespective of the flash ram capability. If you're an amateur director trying to do a film you may want to keep several hours of video with you at all times.

My only point about the picture is that I find them both extremely comparable for consumer uses and the $650-700 price point at around $420-450 lower than the Sony reaching perhaps a different kind of consumer. I confess, I really like the SR11 but just couldn't justify the cost when the HF100 was at the right price point with a great performance there. I didn't see any noticeable quality difference online and with the quality of videos produced by the HF100, I knew I could easily live with it. At times I wonder what the difference might be until I realize that I have a long way to go in learning how to just use the camcorder properly with all the features. :) Thanks for all your insights kevin, they've really educated me a great deal in a short time.

I finally choice HF100 because of its video quality. Compare with HDR-SR11/12, HF10/100's video is more sharp. Sonys' video looks like more white (wash away).

Can't argue with any of your logic Slinky! :)

You can't compare two cams this way. There are so many variables between the person taking the video and his skill level, differences in scenes, differences in how the cams were adjusted etc. etc. etc.

The only way you'll ever tell is to have both cams in your hand shooting the same scene at the same time. That's what I did with the HF10 and SR12.

Ken nailed it on the money with those words.... test them both at the same time.

This is what I did with a Sony HC3 and Canon HV10. Ended up with both, and I shoot with both of them at the same time, sometimes.

Ken, glad to see you back in the camcorder forums. I haven't made the jump to one of the AVCHD cams....yet.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/dd2fd0d1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/76603aad.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/a30a5395.jpg

You can't compare two cams this way. There are so many variables between the person taking the video and his skill level, differences in scenes, differences in how the cams were adjusted etc. etc. etc.

The only way you'll ever tell is to have both cams in your hand shooting the same scene at the same time. That's what I did with the HF10 and SR12.

You are right. From the following link, we can see SR11/12 is better than HF10/100 at low light environment. But HF10/100 is more clear than SR11/12. And SR11/12's video/picture is more white than HF10/100:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Sony-HDR-SR12-Camcorder-Review-34809/Performance.htm#

Beyond the $/gigabyte calculation you also need to consider transfer time. Pulling video off these is like sucking a golf ball through a garden hose. It's slow through USB and you've got to keep the camera connected (and on AC power) the whole time. Pull a card, replace it with another, and load that card into your PC at your leisure without the camera even being present. That, for me, was the real clincher. Next down the line was long term reliability of the moving parts in a hard drive. Yeah, they're better than they've even been at resisting shock, but they're still mechanical rotating media and WILL fail. At undoubtedly a princely sum to repair. Granted, there's all the other mechanical bits for the lenses but that's more or less common to all camcorders. With solid state media the worst case is likely just corrosion on the edge connectors. That can be cleaned a lot easier than replacing a hard drive. Oh, and Sony's insistence on continuing to foist the overpriced Memory Stick nonsense on their cameras.

Ken nailed it on the money with those words.... test them both at the same time.

This is what I did with a Sony HC3 and Canon HV10. Ended up with both, and I shoot with both of them at the same time, sometimes.

Ken, glad to see you back in the camcorder forums. I haven't made the jump to one of the AVCHD cams....yet.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/dd2fd0d1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/76603aad.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/Polardoor/a30a5395.jpg


Blasst, you da man, you da man!!!!! Folks, THAT'S how you do it. Nice job guy!

Hello,

I am new and just placed an order for the HF-100. I decided on it because I liked the video quality, I liked the idea of using the same memory cards I use for my dSLR, I like the idea of fewer moving parts.

The only thing about the Canon that worries me is the image stabilization. The fact it isn't as good as the Panasonic SD9 almost had me going for that one. However, I felt image quality wise and feature wise the SD9 was weak. So I am hoping that the O.I.S. turns out better than reviews would indicate.

As for memory, well I have 23 SDHC cards ranging from 2GB to 16GB. I don't see any problems here. I am also not too worried about battery power, I can charge in the car and since I plan to combine the video with still images for most projects I am not worried about runtime. Though I may get a larger capacity battery just so I don't have worry about it at all.

My next big problem is finding software for editing. Adobe is out, typically for them they are behind the support for standards. Pinnacle Studio 11 looks nice, but is slow and choppy on my system. So I am upgrading from a Core2 Duo to a Core2 Quad and adding in 2GB more memory for a total of 4GB. I am hoping this will smooth things out. I am also going to look at PowerDirector and Magix products for editing, but I am hoping the Pinnacle software will work better with the system upgrade.

Robert

1) Someone who saw my videos that the image stabilization was excellent and thought I used a tripod. It might not be as good as others but it's no catastrophe.

2) If 55-65 minutes of video doesn't concern you then you're fine. I still think an investment in the 819 batter (twice the power) is a great investment and lasts a long time. I always have a spare in case I forget to charge or other issue arises.

3) I own Pinnacle Studio 11. Any AVCHD will be a challenge. I don't know that a Quad will make an incredible difference for certain things since I don't know what your original processor was. Regardless, you can expect it not to be silky smooth in the editor at times. It's a boatload of data to move. But there is another item I'm not hearing about besides the RAM, which must be 4GB and a very likely reason why your experience is choppy. What is missing? Your hard drive specs, which will play a significant role as well. Pinnacle 11 works fine on my Core 2 Duo 6600, 3 GB of RAM and high speed SATA drives (although not multimedia specials.) Definitely not as smooth as standard definition but that's to be expected.

Is Dell Precision Workstation 670(Spec: Intel Xeon 3.0GHz CPU, 1Gb RAM, ATI FireGL V3100 video card, SoundMax) powerful enough to edit HF100 video? I just ordered HF100. Thanks!

Is Dell Precision Workstation 670(Spec: Intel Xeon 3.0GHz CPU, 1Gb RAM, ATI FireGL V3100 video card, SoundMax) powerful enough to edit HF100 video? I just ordered HF100. Thanks!

Get yourself some extra memory. 1GB won't be enough. I would say minimum 2GB (especially if you're on Vista).

Get yourself some extra memory. 1GB won't be enough. I would say minimum 2GB (especially if you're on Vista).

Thanks for reply. It uses XP.

BTW, what's the best HD edit software? Apple Final Cut, Adobe CS3, or others? I feel Final Cut is very good, please refer

http://www.vimeo.com/910518
http://www.vimeo.com/912349

But the software is very expansive (over $1000) and it is running on Apple's OS.

Until Adobe natively supports AVCHD, I'm going to wait to get Premiere.

A lot of people here seems to like Sony's Vegas Pro. Some others like ULead Studio 11.5. Both of those have free trial versions available. I'm personally using Pinnacle's Studio 11.2, which I like for what I do (casual editing to author DVDs and WMV-HD clips for my family and friends).

The only one I wouldn't personally recommend is Nero7. There's a newer version and I'm sure there's plenty of people that had a better experience with it than me. But personally, I wasn't happy with the options nor the overall output quality. YMMV though.

All softwares I pointed out are available for less than $200 (most of them lower than $100) and will fill most editing needs. So I don't think there's a need to put $1000 on software to edit AVCHD.

Good deal at 6ave.com. Find HF100, and input coupon code, AFL5 (5% off). You can get $627 with free shipping. Before that, the best price at 6ave.com is $606.