How much work with the Vixia HG20? at DVinfo.net

Jason McGovern · April 9th, 2009, 07:43 PM

I was thinking about the Vixia HG20 as a workhorse camcorder for our department. What's the process for getting footage off the HG20/HG21?

We have potentially four of five people with limited A/V knowledge that need to use a camcorder at different times. I was hoping to find a camera that would be fairly easy to shoot and copy files once done.

Thanks.

Bradley Ouellette · April 9th, 2009, 09:57 PM

If I am not mistaken, it is as simple as plugging the USB cord into your pc/mac and just dragging the file from the Camcorder to your Computer Hard Drive.

It is similar to just plugging in a USB thumb drive. This method is also the same for the SD based flash video camcorders, like the Canon Vixia HF10/HF100. Might wanna look into those. Will produce a little bit better video quality. And the same price i believe...

Nick Gordon · April 11th, 2009, 05:07 AM

Bradley's pretty much right: the camera will show as an external disk. Depending what software you use, you may need to drag the entire folder structure of the camcorder's disk to the computer.

The SD card camcorders use the same format - the only issue would be that you'd have to manage the SD cards as well.

David Wayne Groves · April 28th, 2009, 05:18 PM

The HG20 and 21 along with being a Hard drive based camcorder is also a Flashcard camcorder as well, ( It can use up to 32Gig cards) basically you can remove the flashcard, plug it into a built in or external card reader and drag the footage to your PC, no need to plug the camcorder via USB to your PC...

Jason McGovern · April 29th, 2009, 07:45 PM

Thanks for the replies... So I got my hands on this HG20... I can't believe how small it is. But in the small print it says "Recordings made with the [PF24], [PF30] frame rate are converted and recorded on the hard disk/memory card as 60i"

Can anyone help me understand what in the sam hill that means?

Also, it looks as though out of 5 recording modes the top two do 1920x1080 - the rest are 1440x1080. Weird.

I don't understand why they wouldn't reduce the frame size of the worst mode. When working with this mode - what good is a 1440 image if it's going to be garbage? And then you still get a big file size to boot. Guess I can resize and compress but wish it already came with that - a 640 mode...

April 9th, 2009, 07:43 PM	#1
Jason McGovern Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 35	How much work with the Vixia HG20? I was thinking about the Vixia HG20 as a workhorse camcorder for our department. What's the process for getting footage off the HG20/HG21? We have potentially four of five people with limited A/V knowledge that need to use a camcorder at different times. I was hoping to find a camera that would be fairly easy to shoot and copy files once done. Thanks.

April 9th, 2009, 09:57 PM	#2
Bradley Ouellette Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Windsor, Ontario, Canada Posts: 78	If I am not mistaken, it is as simple as plugging the USB cord into your pc/mac and just dragging the file from the Camcorder to your Computer Hard Drive. It is similar to just plugging in a USB thumb drive. This method is also the same for the SD based flash video camcorders, like the Canon Vixia HF10/HF100. Might wanna look into those. Will produce a little bit better video quality. And the same price i believe... __________________ University of Windsor student. Trying to find funds for gear...

April 11th, 2009, 05:07 AM	#3
Nick Gordon Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Milton Keynes, UK Posts: 166	Bradley's pretty much right: the camera will show as an external disk. Depending what software you use, you may need to drag the entire folder structure of the camcorder's disk to the computer. The SD card camcorders use the same format - the only issue would be that you'd have to manage the SD cards as well.

April 28th, 2009, 05:18 PM	#4
David Wayne Groves Regular Crew Join Date: May 2008 Location: Charleston WV Posts: 149	The HG20 and 21 along with being a Hard drive based camcorder is also a Flashcard camcorder as well, ( It can use up to 32Gig cards) basically you can remove the flashcard, plug it into a built in or external card reader and drag the footage to your PC, no need to plug the camcorder via USB to your PC...

April 29th, 2009, 07:45 PM	#5
Jason McGovern Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 35	Thanks for the replies... So I got my hands on this HG20... I can't believe how small it is. But in the small print it says "Recordings made with the [PF24], [PF30] frame rate are converted and recorded on the hard disk/memory card as 60i" Can anyone help me understand what in the sam hill that means? Also, it looks as though out of 5 recording modes the top two do 1920x1080 - the rest are 1440x1080. Weird. I don't understand why they wouldn't reduce the frame size of the worst mode. When working with this mode - what good is a 1440 image if it's going to be garbage? And then you still get a big file size to boot. Guess I can resize and compress but wish it already came with that - a 640 mode...