Canon Vixia HF11 (Owners Thread)

So far my HF11 has worked flawlessly, it's a fantastic camera. I haven't scrutinized the 24mbps vs 17mbps bit rate differences since I've only had the camera for about a week, but like yourself I opted for the HF11 over the HF10 since I would have been wondering how much better the increased bit rate would have looked had I purchased the HF10. The Canon marketing works...

Now if the AVCHD editing software will catch up to the capabilities of this camera we'll been in good shape! (as I mentioned in my HF10/HF100 forum post regarding using Vegas 8.0c and being unable to output rendered video at 24mbps). Again, I hope I am just missing something.

I have tried the latest demo versions of PowerDirector and also VideoStudio X2 but still was unable to produce video output with the same quality as the HF11's original clips. VideoStudio was painfully slow and it's media player struggled to playback the AVCHD video. (FYI I'm running an HP - Core 2 Quad CPU with 6Gb of ram and separate SATA drives for input and output video data).

Unfortunately, Canon's simple Image Mixer software seems to work the best for editing and playback with this camera. When I perform simple edits and write the rendered files back to the camera for playback they look as good as the original (which is the way it should look!).

The HF11's direct HDMI output to a 65" Sharp Aquos TV looks fantastic.

The mini-HDMI adapters were hard to find in the Chicago area, probably too new. Got mine as well from Monoprice. They really save you a bundle on cables compared to the local retailers.

Would be interested to know if Final Cut can output 24mbps AVCHD files. I'm sure all of the editing software firms will eventually support that format and bitrate soon.

As far as 1080i output, it typically gets converted to 30 fps progressive anyway in LCD TVs so I'm not too concerned about the interlaced output. Not sure if the AVCHD standard includes 1080p 60fps capability. Will have to investigate that issue.

I don't have the HF11 but I can answer that one. The PS3 is compatible with every AVCHD camcorder.

Yes it will play flawlessly on the PS3. I have the 80gb version with card reader. I was able to pull the card out of the HF11 and play the files directly from the SD card. You just navigate to the Stream folder. Also, I burned the AVCHD files to a DVD and was able to play on a friend's PS3. I love the camera and really love the versatility of the PS3.

How is native editing with 24bit files?

i got the hf11 because of the 24mbs bitrate, the footage i shoot is usually fast motion stuff.

here is a vixia hf11 review that i put together, it has sample footage and some pics... what i want to know is, are these white dots dropouts of some sort?

Canon Vixia HF11 Review

thanks, that review was a lot of work, i haven't finished the second page yet... i think you are right about the hf11 being the only camera on the market that shoots 24Mbps.

i was shooting in 24Mbps mode, and i saw the white specks in only a couple of clips... i shot some more last nite, we'll see if any of that footage is compromised.

I have shot about 5 hours of video with the HF11 and have not noticed any white specs as seen in your video frames. One thought is some type of lens reflection being captured by the sensor. If it was dust on the sensor it would appear as dark specs. If it was a sensor defect it would appear in every frame. Unless it is some type of really unusual compression artifact although it does not look very digital in nature. (i.e. the shapes of the specks would be likely show more symmetry).

i was thinking reflection as well... or perhaps bad memory cells? i'm still evaluating the new footage, but i haven't seen anything bad yet... i added on to what was already shot, so i wasn't accessing the same area of memory as i was with the bad clips.

I just got mine today, and while the footage looks awesome I'm having some problems with my old AVCHD workflow that I was using.

I just got the new Canon HF11. I want to shoot in PF30 (30 frames progressive mode) at the 24mbps setting. I am using Video Studio 11.5+.

Video Studio is importing the files that I've recorded in 30p/24Mbps just fine EXCEPT that they are saying it's upper field first. It's not. I need it to import them as Frame Based, so I can grab stills from the video, and work with it in progressive from start to finish (I only output to DV or lower, so AVCHD or HD output in progressive is NOT needed). Input IS needed though. The stills look awful when grabbed with Video Studio 11.5+.

I think the problem is that canon has wrapped their 30p in some kind of 60i system or something. Not sure. And I KNOW the problem with Video Studio is that it's automatically decided that my file is upper field first, because I downloaded the trial version of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0, and with that program it lets you change the field order to frame based. I can grab perfect stills... and work with it in progressive then. I need the same in Video Studio. Does anyone know a way to force VS to import a different field order, OR have a freeware program that will change the header info on a AVCHD file to make it say it's frame based or progressive?

Using Video Studio 11.5+ I know you can change field order when you export the files into different formats, but I need to change the field order on the import of these files.

I hope someone has an answer for me! I don't want to change from Corel as I've gotten use to it, or return this camera. Thanks in advance.

I couldn't post a sample video until I had 3 posts.

Sorry guys.... wanted to post a sample video that was shot in the 30p to see if someone can help me. (3rd post!)

I've uploaded a 1 minute clip shot in the 30p/24mbps mode from the new canon HF11. It's 176 MB.

http://rapidshare.com/files/14817971...1-30p.zip.html

If anyone could help me figure out how to import this into Video Studio 11.5+ correctly that would be awesome.

You know guys..... I may be thinking about this wrong. I've been outputting that video file to different formats (DV, WMV 720pHD, DVD) all as progressive (field-based), and they're all looking really good. It makes sense when you think about how this interlacing is done (progressive segmented frame). This explains it more.

http://www.elurauser.com/articles/ca...sive_modes.jsp

Now, I WON'T be able to grab stills in VS11.5+ because the program thinks this is normally interlaced video,and they look awful, but I can frameserve the files in to virtualdubmod and grab stills from there.

Do you guys think I'm on the right track with my thinking on the progressive output for videos on this file?

i think that the dv format is strictly field-based, it does not record progressive frames(?)

if the stills you are capturing have that interlaced problem, all you have to do is to bring them into a photo editing program and deinterlace them there... the frame grabs in the link i posted were all deinterlaced in photoshop, the originals looked really bad.

there is some blur on the car, because i was shooting at 1/60th, and zooming really fast... the shot of the scoreboard did not have any of that.

I got my new HF11 last Friday, been playing with it the weekend.

I connected the camera using USB to my Vista x64 system, I set the camera to video playback, I power on.
I get a message on the screen that I must connect the power adapter.
The manual states you may need to connect the power adapter, I wonder what "may" means.
I connect power, and two removable drives show up on the PC, one for internal storage, one for the SD card.

On further experimentation I found that if I set the samera to picture playback, then I do not need external power, but then the video folder does not show up in Windows.
In video playback mode both the video and picture folder is visible.

I copy the internal drive contents to my machine, about 1.5GB of MTS files, using Windows Explorer, the transfer took more than 10 minutes, very slow.

I tried again, this time using robocopy, and the copy was a bit faster, but still very slow 1.553GB, 9 minutes 19 seconds, at 2.98MB/s or 23.84Mb/s.
That is a bit slower than the 24mb/s recording speed!

I am very dissapointed with the data ransfer rate between the camera and my PC.


Can any other owners comment on data transfer speeds?

P.

I was thinking about getting this camcorder (hf10) for a video project I will be working on. Will I be able to make a movie with this (35 mins or so) and burn it on DVD? Do I need blu ray burning capabilities to use this?

I am looking around for a camcorder to get my wife for Christmas. I am considereing the HF11, but my wife just brought up a concern. I have a ps3 and a TV with HDMI so I will have no problems viewing video at home, but when we go to my parents house they do not have a TV with HDMI and she wanted to know if there is a way to directly play videos from the HF11 on an older TV without HDMI conncetions. Thank you for any information.

Yes, with the AV out port and the included cable. It just won't look as nice.

i noticed the same thing.

i'm wondering if the transfer speed from an sd card to the computer will be quicker... maybe that should be the recording medium, instead of the internal camcorder memory?