The "Official" Canon HFS10 / HFS100 Owner's Thread - Page 3

I believe Osv was referring to Mac not doing "native" AVCHD editing. Every program I looked at does a conversion. iMovie does AIC, FC does ProRes, etc...

Still, I've had no problems editing on a 2.1 C2D MacBook. It does take some time to render but doesn't have any problems in the timeline.

Hi. I'm new to this forum...recently purchased HFS-10. It's very nice.

I am having trouble using their bundled software. I installed on two different computers (both exceeding the minimal tech spec), but not able to get the library to show up (hence, can't get to a point of editing and burning). Any suggestions?

Given this hassle, I am considering purchasing different application. It appears Pinnacle Studio (ver 12) might be best option at this time. Any comments/recommendations?

Thanks!

canon dude

Well the CANON HF S10 doesn't shoot native 24p AVCHD, but you can remove the pulldown using Compressor.

What version of Final Cut Pro are you using? Are you using Final Cut Pro 6?

From Apple website:

With native support for virtually any format, Final Cut Pro lets you edit everything from uncompressed SD to HDV, DVCPRO HD, and uncompressed HD — as well as Panasonic P2, Sony XDCAM HD, AVCHD and AVC-Intra tapeless formats.

I'd be surprised if the latest version of Final Cut Pro didn't support native AVCHD editing as it is the standard video editing program used across the video production industry. It wouldn't make sense given that this is Canon's most popular camcorder and the most popular video editing software, Final Cut Pro. It would be a horrible business decision.

none of the apple software programs edit native avchd, what you are reading there is applespeak that's designed to sell software to people who don't understand the process.

sundedo is right, everything is transcoded, but that is perfectly acceptable, especially in the case of prores, because it's such a nice codec... the drawbacks are that it uses a lot more disk space, and it takes time for the transcoding.

in certain situations, you can actually end up getting better picture quality with prores, instead of editing in native avchd... i used to do it that way with canopus hq as the intermediate.

Hi. I would like to have few questions about the file format.

If I transferred the clip directly from the camcorder to PC, which file format will it be in? Is it mkv? Can VLC (videolan.org) be used to play it? Thanks.

Osv,

Would the new iMacs be sufficient enough for AVCHD editing using ProRes? Sorry in your post on the previous page you said the CPU isn't enough I don't know if you were referring to the Macbook Pro processor or the iMac processor as I'm interested in getting an iMac.

iMacs support: 2.66GHz, 2.93GHz, or 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor

I would think that even the 2.66 would be sufficient and the 4 GB RAM that it comes loaded with along with the video card, although the new nVidia video cards that support Cuda are perfect for video editing. It sends processing power from CPU to GPU because graphic cards are not utilized for rending usually just for play back and with this technology something that takes 4 hours to render can take 45 min. It also handles AVCHD encoding very well I understand.

And regarding HDSC cards:

In trying to understand this flash technology, what advantage would a faster memory card have? I mean a faster card is not going to record higher quality obviously, it could take longer to write to the memory, but you wouldn't be using a card that the camera couldn't keep up with right? In other words, if it's able to record AVCHD it's able to record it right? How could one card be better than another as long as it's able to handle the data rate or that the camcorder isn't writing data to the card an hour after you've finished recording. The only advantage I can think of is it would be faster transferring it from your card to the computer.

Do the SDHC memory cards ever have any problems?

I bought:

SanDisk Ultra II SDHC 32GB Card and a Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card with Card Reader TS16GSDHC6-S5W

Canon recommends and has tested SanDisk, Toshiba and Matsushita SDHC cards.

Hi,

I just got a 58mm Hoya UV Haze Glass Filter from B&H Photo for $14.85. B&H sells the highest quality products and that should work just fine. A UV filter is pretty much a UV Filter, it's most important to protect the lens.

Just go to their website and search for CANON HF S10 and you'll see it under accessories.

Scott

I "tricked out" my HFS100 with Canon's UV filter, the 827 battery (you can see it sticking out the back), and the DM-100 mic, all from B&H Photo. But, then I found this other site, http://www.camerafilters.com , that has other cheap goodies that you can see in this pic:

58mm 3 in 1 Lens Hood (Product ID: G3, $6.00) on the camera
58mm Hoya Collapsible Rubber Lens Hood (Product ID: G11, $11.20) next to the camera
58mm Plastic Snap-On Lens Cap (Product ID: PLC58, $1.00) on the left
58mm Professional Metal Lens Cap (Product ID: EW167, $4.95) on the right

I like the cheaper 3-in-1 lens hood better because you can see it has a larger diameter even though both hoods are the same length. The Hoya hood was slightly visible in the corners at full wide angle. The description of the Hoya hood says it is not compatible with a lens cap. But, the snap-on lens cap does work fine with both hoods. The heavy-duty metal cap is a screw-in cap and that one will only work with the cheaper hood since that hood has threads that allow it to be screwed in. I will only use that cap for transporting since the snap-on cap works great and is easier to put on and take off.

Wow. I'm surprised you didn't get the Wide Angle Lens.

it is avchd(h.264), .mts, and the latest vlc media player will play it, but you'll need a really fast cpu in order to see the full framerate... because the vlc media player is not video-accelerated.

i think that you are probably right about the 2.66 core2duo being able to edit the avchd footage, because it's not really editing avchd, it's editing either prores or aic... macs can't edit native avchd... lower cpu requirements are another good reason to use an intermediate codec like prores.

the only way to take advantage of cuda is if the editing software is specifically written to do that... most software packages will not utilize cuda, so do your homework first.

there are some people out here who have posted their experiences with importing avchd to macs, but you'll have to dig to find the posts.

... and I've edited all my AVCHD on my Linux laptop and desktop with no issues. Ah, it's nice to have working computers. 60i, 30FP, and 24FP modes. VDPAU for accelerated playback. Multi-threaded encoding. Ah... I'm enjoying editing video from my HF-S100.

I remember years back when I was using Microsoft's "operating system" and Adobe's video production product and hating every minute of it.

I was having a similar problem, and narrowed it down to having Haali media splitter installed. Once I got rid of it, the Canon SW worked great.

So the only thing that can really edit native 24p AVCHD is Adobe Premiere CS4 or Vegas Pro?

Adobe Premiere used to be a bulky program that was incredibly slow, but supposedly made tremendous improvements in CS4. Heck CS3 was even used for Superman Returns.

I have the question and need comment on the furhter step,
to burning the AVCHD file in to DVDs,
I found that the Pixela software will convert down the system bitrate that reccoerd at MXP 24Mbps to 18 Mbps and burn to DVDs, (May be this cause from the limitation of AVCHD to DVDs reccording bitrate limit),
It mean we have the quality drop on this down convert process correct ?
Some one know the way to export editting+combining files with 24Mbps to DVDs disk
without down convert them ?
For all other software that you are using, do you have the same problem ?
Do we can save this
And this Pixela software is not support double-layer type of DVDs,
That require double amount of DVDs to be store, (but still cheaper than store all file in HDD or invest on the BD burning rom),

Com_Su

I am a pro audio recording engineer looking to patch external audio into a Canon Vixia HF S100. What are the audio recording specs (signal-to-noise ratio, frequency response, and maximum input level)? I'll be using several studio quality mics and a mixer, and will feed the camcorder a stereo mix. What is the maximum gain I can feed into the camcorder without distorting? Mic level only and NOT line level, right? Thanx and have a good one

Just got my hf s10 today at BB for 1099. I have sony vegas pro 8. Anyone know how I can edit my footage and then render it in the same avchd format to keep the hd or blueray quality?

Anyone have any experience or screen shots with the CANON WD-H58 Wide Angle Lens?

Thanks

Scott

I recently bought an HF S100 from Costco.com (they had it at $949 - but it's already gone) and included for free was the 2GB version of this ATP PRO MAX SD Card. I popped the card in my new camera and found that this rated Class 6 card was being detected as a Class 2 card and therefore won't record at a higher level than XP+.

I intend on picking up a few higher capacity cards anyway, but wanted to at least play around with the camera some with this 2GB card out of the box. I'm wondering if this is an issue with the capacity being only 2GB, or perhaps it's a defective card, or even something wrong with my new camera. Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks,
Rob

I don't believe that you can record to DVDs at 24MBPs, the highest bit rate that a DVD-9 would support would be 18MBps. Of course you can't play back these DVDs on standard DVD players, only Blu Ray players since standard DVDs don't support HD. If you want the 24MBps you would want to burn to Blu Ray.

Osv,

Is there any quality loss going from AVCHD to Apple ProRes or whichever format you would convert to to edit on the Mac. Are these codes lossless?

Scott

i don't have the hf s100, but speaking in general, most of these little camcorders don't have much in the way of a front end, you'd be better off with a seperate recorder for critical audio... use a clapper to sync the video with the audio... i'm guessing that you are probably looking at line-level inputs, fwiw, you'll have to do some impedance matching to get pro xlr gear to work.

So, I just picked up a a copy of Premiere Elements 7 in a bundle with Photoshop Elements 7 (which I use for all my photos) and am having trouble getting my new HFS100 to be recognized in Premiere Elements for downloading video. Interestly, Photoshop Elements did recognize it as a camera and I could download some still images. So is there a trick for Premiere that I'm missing?

Also, what is this download for Premiere that supposedly adds support for 24p?

I searched around the Adobe site and couldn't find anything...

Bob O'Donnell

Hi Bob,

I couldn't get Premiere Elements to recognize the camera, but I was able to just select open from hard drive and then select the Canon drive that the camera puts on computer and it opened the files just fine. Regarding the 24P for Premiere Elements:

Try installing this update, it is for Premiere Pro but works with PE7. It will install a new group of project presets for Canon 24fps progressive media. It is not specific for Canon and should work with any 24fps high definition progressive video.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloa...jsp?ftpID=3408

If you have trouble installing here is the path to where the "Canon Progressive HDV.xml" file should go
C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0\\Plug-ins\\en_US\\Editing Modes
and copy the "Canon HDV" folder here
C:\\Program Files\\Adobe\\Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0\\settings\\en_US

Scott

i think that if you stick with prores, the end result after all the editing should look as good or better than if you were editing native avchd... aic might be o.k. as well, but it's an inferior codec to prores.

prores is probably classified as near lossless(??), which is plenty good... with a mac, it's easy to get beat up really badly in the final encode to your distribution format, so editing with prores will be the least of your worries.

for example, if you use quicktime to encode to h.264, you'll take a quality hit, there are better choices... sorenson squeeze 5, for instance, or even some freeware alternatives... same thing with using quicktime to encode mpeg2 for sd dvd.

Does the HFS100 come with an HDMI cable? If not, where can I buy one, I think the size of the HDMI output on the camcorder is much smaller than the size of the HDMI input on the back of my TV.

Thanks,

Dalat I think what you are looking for is a mini (type C ) to standard (type A ) Cable I just ordered an 6 ft. cable from Monoprice for 1/10 the price Canon is asking for. Hope this helps

Francis

That's type C HDMI cable. Forum sponser Monoprice.com has them for cheap.

Thanks Osv,

Yes from reading different message boards on the internet I'm hearing that many professionals are using Cineform NeoScene codec. First of all it's much more efficient and easy to edit and it's supposedly a great way of doing the 3:2 pulldown, although someone suggests that After Effects or JES Deinterlacer are better at doing the 3:2 pulldown, because Canon doesn't flag the extra frames, the software has to guess the cadence and sometimes it guesses wrong.

I got a prob, the camcorder automaticly split long video into multiple 2gb files. I noticed today when adding those video on premiere to merge them that at the end of each file their a 4 frames gap where theirs no sound at all... As i recorded a concert this is kind of problematic as it make a noticable "bump" in the music... (not too often at least...) any solution?