I shot a bunch of clips this morning under clear blue skies with just occasional scattered clouds. I shot first with one cam and then immediately the same scene with the other. I prefer doing an A/B side by side at the same instant in time, but I couldn't for a couple of reasons. First it was very windy in N.Y. and second, because of the need to extend the LCD, it was just too awkward to frame both cams accurately.

I had no problem with the Canon LCD except for one shot, shooting in to the sun. I wanted this shot because I wanted to see how the lens on both cams handled sun glare. I have a theory about the rez charts that some reviewers use. These charts are shot under indoor, controlled lighting conditions...it says nothing about how a lens handles glare, bright sunlight, high contrast, low contrast etc (the somewhat blurry zoom shot I got yesterday with the Canon when shooting across a drizzly field, was a low contrast condition that the Canon didn't respond favorably to...there was no such problem this morning under bright, contrasty light). These are all factors in lens design and won't necessarily show up in any rez charts. Just another reason why it's dangerous to 'buy by the numbers'.

What I found with the sunny clips of today was the consistently better color rendition of the Sony. My friend and I both agreed it was closer to reality. At times the Canon was just too cool whereas the Sony was neutral. This is pretty much what I've felt all along with the Sony on its own, but it was even more evident in contrast to the Canon. This didn't occur all the time, but happened often enough. Again, the Canon displays the magenta sky issue and can be annoying at times. They just can't seem to get rid of this.

Interestingly, and somewhat surprisingly, I saw almost no evidence of the purple fringing on the Canon lens. It happened perhaps once or twice, but only to a minor degree and only in areas of very bright to dark transitions. I'm convinced this is not a lens issue, since there is no consistency to it and when it does occur, it does not occur along the edges where you typically see CA in a lens. If I wasn't looking for it, I doubt I would have seen it at all. In my mind this is not an issue with the HF10.

My friend and I both thought the Sony did an overall better job with exposure. This, coupled with the amazingly low noise of the Sony, simply produced to what our eyes always felt was the more professional looking image. This is something I felt from day one with the Sony. It just hits you right away. We both agreed we've never owned a cam that produces this professional looking a picture. The color is just the best of any cam I've ever owned and coupled with the overall excellent exposure and low noise, I haven't seen anything better. I saw no repeat of the 'haze' issue I saw on two clips a week or so ago where the SR12 seemed to lose some contrast.

In terms of low light performance and things missed by certain reviewers who will go nameless:

The SR12 performed better, at least in my house and at least with the kind of lighting I have (recessed lighting). One room, my den, I made a bit dim and others I put on normal brightness. For whatever reason my house is always tough for low light tests. The SR12 was both sharper and more noise free than the HF10. It wasn't a day/night difference, but anyone familair with video would see it. No, I didn't lower my lights to 0 lux, I find those tests absurd. I tested in light that I thought was typical of a normal house.

The Canon showed a type of 'crawling' noise on walls, even light colored walls. It was a fine grain, but it was definitely visible. The Sony in this same room had an absolutely clean rendition of that same area. In other parts of the room, darker areas in particular, both cams displayed a bit of noise. But I didn't shoot one clip, not one, where the HF10 looked cleaner.

I had one HF10 telephoto shot that was a bit fuzzy under low contrast, rainy weather. Now in another telephoto shot down the street, the HF10 looked sharp and clear with none of what I had seen before. Part of the issue in the first clip may have been due to the fact that the first telephoto shot was shot at a much longer distance as oppoed to down the block and the low contrast of the day was more pronounced. Perhaps this had something to do with the lens itself or better coatings on the SR12 lens...I just can't say.

Here are a few points I haven't seen mentioned in certain reviews and might prove interesting:

* The SR12 and HF10 do NOT have the same field of view. I have no idea why some reviewers think so. The SR12 definitely takes in a wider field of view than the HF10. This is also why the HF10 gets you closer at max telephoto than the SR12 despite them both having a 12X optical zoom. You really have to be careful with these reviews.

* The HF10 was quite a bit brighter in the cloudy, overcast weather of yesterday. As I said, its colors were less saturated and leaned toward the blue.

* Indoors, some shots on the SR12 had a bit more 'pink' in fleshtones than the HF10. My wife didn't really notice it until I pointed it out. Part of it may have been due to the more saturated colors of the Sony. In general, at least in my house, the colors of the Sony were a bit more accurate for the most part.

* To use the remote while playing back your footage on an HDTV, you must have the LCD open on the HF10 since the sensor is on the side of the INSIDE of the LCD panel. What was Canon thinking on this one??? Why should I have to pop the LCD open, draining my battery much quicker, when I'm watching on TV? Isn't it assumed if you're using a remote you're watching it on TV? In fact I thought there was something wrong with either the cam or the remote. I checked the battery, the orientation of the cam etc. Finally, as I should have done in the first place, I checked the schematic of the cam and saw the sensor was located inside the LCD. Truly one of the dumber design moves I've seen. I can understand as these cams get smaller the design becomes a compromise, but there are certain things that should get priority.

* Once you've used the SR12 and then begin using the HF10, you can't believe how awkward the port covers are on the HF10 by comprison. Getting the HDMI plug in is not easy since you must battle both the port cover and the hand strap. Then, once you've gotten it in, the cam has trouble resting squarely on a table since the wire is forced in to an odd position by the strap.

* The audio on the HF10 is pretty good, in fact dialog is a bit louder on the HF10 than it is on the SR12. Of course you lose the ambiance created by the 5.1 sound on the SR12. It's pretty weird switching back and forth and just listening to the audio between the cams. On the SR12, my voice while operating the cam, comes from the rear speakers, but when I switch to the HF10 all of a sudden the whole sound field switches to the front.

* When playing back on your HDTV, the menu is pretty much the same with both cams, but the HF10's appearence is a bit more crude, a bit more 'dossy' if you know what I mean. Not a biggie, just a bit of a difference. Both cams are just as easy to operate. There is one difference in operation in this respect. When you have the SR12 turned on and are connected via HDMI, the cam automatically defaults to the camera mode. You can see yourself behind the menu. You use the remote to highlight the 'play' button to switch the cam to playback mode. Because of this you need to be sure your audio is not turned way up if you put the cam near your speakers. Trust me, I learned the hard way. The Canon probably makes more sense since you set the mode by the dial regardless of how you connect the cam.

Another thing my friend and I agreed on was that the HV20 produces a better picture than the HF10. My friend first mentioned this when he said we had a much tougher time determining which cam produced a better picture between the HV20 and the SR12. We simply didn't have that difficult a time on this go-around. I honestly expected to be doing A/Bs for days if not weeks.

I asked my friend what his final assessment was in terms of how much better he thought the Sony picture was. He felt that overall it was about 20% better on average, but some scenes were more like 30% better. Although it's hard to quantify, I don't think I'd disagree with him. Of course this is purely subjective.

The ironic thing was that we both agreed beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the closest picture parameter was sharpness and detail. On my 60" 1080p Pioneer Kuro, it was almost impossible to pick a winner in the overwhelming majority of clips in terms of sharpness.

I know full well that some will say "oh, you're biased", but those people simply don't know me. The only reason I go through camcorders like water, is I'm ALWAYS after what I feel is the best picture. My last two HD cams were Canons prior to this for that reason. But this round goes to Sony...at least IMO and my anal video buddy's opinion too.

This is no way says the Canon is a slouch, it isn't and I'd be happy with it if the Sony wasn't around. But I don't think I"d make the switch from the HV20 to the HF10 based purely on picture quality. I'd be tempted to keep both, the HV20 for when I want to shoot the best quality and the HF10 for the convenience of AVCHD acquisition.

By the way, for the 'point & shooters' there is little difference between either cam in terms of their ease of use. Of course the viewfinder or lack thereof may be an issue. If you wear glasses, it will be an issue.

Also, I did not try the 24p or 30p mode since I didn't plan on using it. I might give it a whirl for fun.

Sorry for the length.

Ken, thanks for the very detailed description. Out of curiosity, did you get any feel for how the image stabilizer behaves between the two?

Edit: Also, regarding the color shifts in the HF100, did you get the impression that it is a fairly consistent shift - i.e., easily correctable in post - or is it constantly varying?

Ken, thanks for the very detailed description. Out of curiosity, did you get any feel for how the image stabilizer behaves between the two?

Edit: Also, regarding the color shifts in the HF100, did you get the impression that it is a fairly consistent shift - i.e., easily correctable in post - or is it constantly varying?

Dave, I thought the OIS was very similar in both. However, I do find it easier to hold the Sony steady, perhaps because while using the viewfinder I can brace it against my face.

In terms of the color shift, when there was one with the Canon it invariably leaned toward the blue...a cooler look. That degree of shift would vary however. Yesterday in the overcast and rain, the blue shift was quite pronounced. Today under sunny skies, it was less so. But some colors were altered such as blue and orange. The thing that concerns me about correcting anything "HD" in post, is the extreme time required to do so. Editing in HD is a bear and AVCHD is a tougher bear. So you really don't want to have to color correct clip after clip, it will be a very very time consuming process assuming your computer is even up to it. You really want to make sure the color is as correct as it can be in the acquisition phase.

In all fairness, I did not use any MWB controls, both were set to full AWB. It is quite possible better results may have been obtained using either a preset for "Outdoor" or MWB. But I really wanted to do an 'apples to apples' comparison.

Thanks Ken for such a detailed assessment! I really appreciate it.

I find it interesting that you concluded that the Canon was cool color wise. Could it have been a white balance or color setting?

I remember when in the old SD (digital) days, the Sonys (PD150, PD170) were considered cool (bluish) and the Canons (GL1, XL1, XL1S) were considered warm (reddish).

Thanks again for doing all that work!

Doug, yes it appears that's how Canon has their AWB set. You're correct in that manufacturers seem to change their design philosophy from generation to generation. I was a bit disappointed when I went from my Sony VX2000, which I thought produced great colors to my current VX2100 (yeah, I still use SD cams for work) which I think produces cooler, somewhat less accurate colors. Why Sony chose to do it is beyond me.

As I said, you can always try MWB or one of the presets to improve things. I didn't try those so I can't tell you how welll those work in terms of correcting things.

Ken, Thanks for the additional information. I agree it's best to minimize post as much as possible, but sometimes you have to do some, especially for artistic videos, less so for recording family memories.

I'll throw one more question at you and test your memory. Since you had an SD9 to look at a few weeks ago, do you remember your impression of how the color balance and exposure would compare to these two cameras outdoors? I know it wouldn't be A/B, but I'm curious what you remember. I've looked at an SD9 in the store now, but I haven't yet found a store that has one that will let me take it outside.

Dave, I thought the color of the SD9 outdoors was very nice..in fact I liked it better than the HF10. I don't recall anything odd about the exposure, so I think that was fine too. In terms of downside, there is some edge enhancement that can be seen in good light, but the most serious issue is low light. Dave, this is simply one of the worst HD camcorders I've seen in low light.

Apparently Panasonic made a design decision to almost eliminate low light noise. Unfortunately in the process they also eliminated any detail. I don't think I've ever seen an HD camcorder take such a drop off the clif with detail in low light. To say it looked "VHSish" is not an understatement IMO.

this is simply one of the worst HD camcorders I've seen in low light.
Apparently Panasonic made a design decision to almost eliminate low light noise. Unfortunately in the process they also eliminated any detail

Ken, thanks again for the additional inputs. I agree with your low light conclusion after the limited testing I did in the store, but my usage will be 99% outdoors in good light, so it's still on my list of candidates at least for the time being until I've had a chance to try everything.

What really should be done is to give the user the choice to turn NR on and off (or at least reduce it). Sony does this in their new Alpha DSLR's and it would be nice to see this migrate to camcorders.

Sorry for the length.Are you kidding me, Ken? We need *more* posts just like yours. Thanks a bunch -- much appreciated,

Thanks Chris. This is what happens when you get anal about a hobby. :)

In all fairness, I did not use any MWB controls, both were set to full AWB. It is quite possible better results may have been obtained using either a preset for "Outdoor" or MWB. But I really wanted to do an 'apples to apples' comparison.

Maybe it is the AWB. A few weeks ago someone let me check out their Canon HG10 while I was on a job filming a play. Just for fun I filmed part of the play with the HG10 one day when I wasn't filming with my regular (SD) camera. When I looked at the footage later, I noticed that the auto white balance seemed to drift around a bit as the camera moved, even when the stage lighting was not changing, whereas my regular camera doesn't do that. After seeing that, I would have tried a preset incandescent WB, but I had given the camera back by then.

If you have the time to try a preset outdoor WB or manual WB, it would be interesting to see if that helps.

Thanks for the feedback... But how have you come to the conclusion that HV20 is better than HF10 ? Not what I see here:
http://lucienk.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!A4AE3FB12A26635!708/

Dave, I'll give it a shot. One thing I don't think I mentioned and you reminded me of, is the variability of the HF10's AWB. In framing the shot, I'm careful when first turning on the cam to point the cam toward the scene I intend to shoot. With many cameras if you happen to point the cam to the ground or some object of fixed color, you can get a whacky WB. At any rate there were a couple to times I reframed a shot, although I was not pointing the cam toward anything unusual. In the process of turning the cam on and off and back on again, I got a couple of radically different white balances.

It wasn't so much the tone changed, but rather the intensity. When the color was wrong, the LCD clearly showed a much too saturated image. I have no idea why this occurred and I'd never seen that behavior with either my HV10 or HV20.

For me (and others may feel differently), there is comfort in knowing you have a reliable AWB. I say this because LCDs and viewfinders really can't be used as reliable indicators of the accuracy of your colors. True you can see gross errors, but smaller errors will be missed both because of the small size of these displays and their inherently inaccurate color. Yes you can use a fixed preset, but you have to be careful when, where and at what times of the day you do that. Used at the wrong time, the preset can yield a too saturated picture, a too blue picture or a too warm picture.

Add to this the fact that I actually haven't 'always' found the MWB to work the best in all situations. I find MWB to work the best when all others methods fail. As an example, last week I was in a building where they rebuild railway cars. My VX2100's AWB was clearly fooled by the very odd lighting in some of the different rooms within this operation. Presets were of no use either. The MWB worked perfectly in this situation. But I've had others where I've actually found the AWB to work the best.

So it's a crapshoot at times.

Thanks for the feedback... But how have you come to the conclusion that HV20 is better than HF10 ? Not what I see here:
http://lucienk.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!A4AE3FB12A26635!708/

Robin, relating to that site, I don't think I've ever met anyone on any camcorder enthusiast site, whose 'findings' so differed from mine. He has frequented one forum in particular and has posted numerous pictures and opinions on his testing of the Sony SR11 that he bought from a place he knew had a liberal return policy. Suffice is to say his pictures have been proven to be seriously flawed and his 'issue' are issues that no other owner seems to have. He has even posted a clip he claimed were 'dropouts' on the SR11. The only problem was that not one single person could find those dropouts when playing back that same clip!!! He even referenced the frame number so people knew where to look. Even his current pictures in your link show the colors of the HF100 much too blue. To my eyes the color of the HV20 looks more accurate, but still not the kind of colors I see with my HV20. I've yet to see colors from any of his shots that look 'normal'.

When you've been on some of these forums long enough you learn who the 'reliable' posters are and take their opinions far more seriously than those than have proven to be 'unreliable'. So I really don't bother with his thoughts at this point and would like to end this aspect of the discussion here, it's just not worth any further time. Chris's site is a great site for learning and you don't see the degree of 'bickering' that goes on elsewhere. So I'd really like to keep it that way.

To answer your question using my own experience, I trust my own eyes and my own testing. I've previously stated that I never did a direct A/B of the HV20 vs the HF10. However I've done considerable A/B testing of the SR12 vs the HV20 and found the two to be amazingly close. I still wound up preferring the image of the SR12 due primarily to its lower noise and more consistently 'pristine' image. But it took many days of testing to come to this conclusion, the cams were that close in my opinion.

As you know I just did an A/B with the same SR12 against the HF10. That A/B ended in less than two days since I and my videophile buddy both agreed this testing was far easier in determing a 'winner'. I found the color of the HF10 to be less accurate than the HV20 and I also found the exposure of the HF10 to be less accurate than the HV20.

So by seeing that the SR12 was so close to the HV20 in performance, but yet the SR12 clearly beat the HF10 (in my opinion), I came to the logical conclusion that the HV20 is superior to the HF10.

With that said Robin, if you're seriously interested in these cams, try to find a retailer who has the two cams you're lookig at. Invest in memory media (or tape) and bring them to that store. Test out both cams, take the results home and see which you like better. That's far better than my opinion or anyone elses. Of course the only downside is that you can only shoot in that retailer's environment, but it's better than nothing.

Those HF10 shots and HV20 shots should've been both at 60i. You shouldn't compare a 30p still with a 60i still.

Those HF10 shots and HV20 shots should've been both at 60i. You shouldn't compare a 30p still with a 60i still.

Absolutely Tony, but as I've said, this is why I don't bother with that guy's site, I've seen enough of his flawed 'testing'.

Maybe it is the AWB. A few weeks ago someone let me check out their Canon HG10 while I was on a job filming a play. Just for fun I filmed part of the play with the HG10 one day when I wasn't filming with my regular (SD) camera. When I looked at the footage later, I noticed that the auto white balance seemed to drift around a bit as the camera moved, even when the stage lighting was not changing, whereas my regular camera doesn't do that. After seeing that, I would have tried a preset incandescent WB, but I had given the camera back by then.

If you have the time to try a preset outdoor WB or manual WB, it would be interesting to see if that helps.

I checked out the AWB vs the presets on the HF10 today. No A/Bs on this one, I'm done with that. I found that the effect of the presets was variable and therefore a bit troubling and unpredictable. In one shot it reduced the saturation from the AWB setting, in another clip it increased it and in still another it was exactly the same. These clips were all shot within one hour of each other and all outdoors. I'm more comfortable with a cam where the AWB and presets are the same the vast majority of the time. To me it indicates the AWB is doing its job. Obviously, depending upon the time of day and weather, there will be differences between the two.

But the bottom line was that none of this removed the 'blue' signature from the HF10 clips. Whether it was more or less saturated, it still had a bluish cast.

I also checked out 30p and was a bit surprised to see that there was still a fair amount of motion stutter. Better than 24p, but still there and not my thing.

But the bottom line was that none of this removed the 'blue' signature from the HF10 clips. Whether it was more or less saturated, it still had a bluish cast.

Ken, Thanks a bunch for all this info. This is particularly useful since I may not easily find a local retailer who will let me take the cameras outside, and I don't think it's fair to retailers with liberal return policies to buy a camera without being at least somewhat sure it's the one you want. I guess the only option left is manual white balance, but don't worry about that if you don't have time, I can always try that in the store - it's probably a tougher test anyway due to the mixed indoor lighting in most of the stores.

I do agree that reliable AWB is nice - it certainly reduces work and setup time. My current SD camera has rather good AWB, so I would miss that if these newer cameras aren't as good.

I also checked out 30p and was a bit surprised to see that there was still a fair amount of motion stutter. Better than 24p, but still there and not my thing.

That seems a little surprising, since don't most TV's deinterlace 60i to 60P, which is basically 30P displayed 2:2?

Ken, Thanks a bunch for all this info. This is particularly useful since I may not easily find a local retailer who will let me take the cameras outside, and I don't think it's fair to retailers with liberal return policies to buy a camera without being at least somewhat sure it's the one you want. I guess the only option left is manual white balance, but don't worry about that if you don't have time, I can always try that in the store - it's probably a tougher test anyway due to the mixed indoor lighting in most of the stores.

I do agree that reliable AWB is nice - it certainly reduces work and setup time. My current SD camera has rather good AWB, so I would miss that if these newer cameras aren't as good.



That seems a little surprising, since don't most TV's deinterlace 60i to 60P, which is basically 30P displayed 2:2?

No problem Dave. I don't know if I mentioned, but the SR12 has a very reliable AWB, probably as good as my old VX2000. It's only failing is that in lower lit incadescent lighting, it will tend to oversaturate a bit. But in all outdoor conditions and flourescent conditions I've encountered, it was spot on.

As for the 30p, I may be wrong, but I think the issue is trying to interpolate motion that's simply not there in every other 'missing' frame in 30p. A display can double the number of frames, but there still is no information on rapidly moving objects.

As for the 30p, I may be wrong, but I think the issue is trying to interpolate motion that's simply not there in every other 'missing' frame in 30p. A display can double the number of frames, but there still is no information on rapidly moving objects.

Exactly, which is why I wouldn't have expected to see much difference between 30P and deinterlaced 60i. Maybe the TVs interpolate and don't just duplicate each deinterlaced frame to get 60P, I don't know since I don't yet have an HDTV (I'm sort of in the midst of modernizing our whole video setup along with the camcorder). I've been viewing camcorder footage on a 1920x1200 computer monitor, and on the monitor 30P and deinterlaced 60i look pretty much identical. Things may look different on a real TV, depending on how the extra frames are generated to get 60P from 60i.

I think anytime you edit and render out you're 60i footage it's going to be converted to 30 frames per second because you're deinterlacing to NTSC 29.937 frames per second and it will not look as smooth as watching it directly from the camera.... I think. I could be wrong. I noticed this on my Honeymoon footage. Watching the edited rendered Vegas file looks completely different then watching the HDV tape directly from the camera.

Tony, I just looked at the 30p footage directly on the LCD screen of the HF10 after reading your post. It still lacks the smoothness of 60i, but doesn't look quite as bad as on my HDTV. But to be honest, part of that may be because the HF10's LCD is so small, it's not nearly as easy picking up issues as on a 60" HDTV.

My original comments about lacking smoothness was playing the 30p clip directly from the camera via HDMI to the Pioneer plasma...no editing.

Yes the combination of DVD player and HD tv can make things look bad at times. Playing DVD's through my PS3 to my Panasonic 1920x1080 Plasma is often worse than looking at the same DVD from my old DVD player on my old iArt CRT!!! The combination of the PS3 changing resolution to 1080p over HDMI causes a lot of problems. Stuttering and other artifacts. This with the same DVD. SR11 output over HDMI to the same Panasonic TV is great, makes most network HD look really bad!!!! I had originally got the PS3 as a cheap and multipurpose way of playing BluRay disc but I am now thinking that it is not such a great player. IT is not consistent though and I have yet to figure out what the issues really are with playback. Some DVD's are great others are awful. Tried playing with the 24p settings on both PS3 and Panasonic to no avail. Hate 24p anyway so now have both turned off.
Ron Evans

I think this is the one area that there are some HUGE challenges - AVCHD is just new enough that there are some strange possibilities depending on processing, output device, display device, etc.

I've solved the inability to drag and drop to the Vegas timeline for instance. Installed PMB 3, seems like it works fine with the CX7, so no back compatibility issues... still couldn't drag clips without V8 freezing... forgot I hadn't installed V8 "b", put that on, everything worked smoothly... so it was something in V8 that needed an update!

Another interesting observation... I've heard all about "motion trails", and if I try displaying at the highest preview qualities, it's a huge ugly mess of 'em, BUT if I drop the preview window down to "prieview(half)", trails are GONE, picture is a bit softer, but perfectly acceptable on a 24" monitor, easy to edit and compare footage. I'm suspecting that there are some issues with the display of AVCHD that need to be ironed out - I don't see trails on the LCD, still want to try it on a widescreen but I'm guessing the problem won't be there, so when it comes up in post or playback from other devices - it's going to be up to us to figure out the proper settings and whatnot...

Another interesting observation... I've heard all about "motion trails", and if I try displaying at the highest preview qualities, it's a huge ugly mess of 'em, BUT if I drop the preview window down to "prieview(half)", trails are GONE, picture is a bit softer, but perfectly acceptable on a 24" monitor, easy to edit and compare footage. I'm suspecting that there are some issues with the display of AVCHD that need to be ironed out - I don't see trails on the LCD, still want to try it on a widescreen but I'm guessing the problem won't be there, so when it comes up in post or playback from other devices - it's going to be up to us to figure out the proper settings and whatnot...

Hmm, this could explain why the reports of trails are so varied. What codec does Vegas use to decode AVCHD? (I don't have Vegas.) Do you see trails in rendered footage played through a media player, or just in the Vegas preview window?

Hmm, this could explain why the reports of trails are so varied. What codec does Vegas use to decode AVCHD? (I don't have Vegas.) Do you see trails in rendered footage played through a media player, or just in the Vegas preview window?

I havent' rendered anything with the SR12 yet, I did some stuff mixed HDV and AVCHD (CX7) and didn't see any problem with trails, but it wasn't a high motion event... thought the CX7 looked better than the HDV footage though.

Not sure what codec Vegas uses, but I'd think SOny would sort of have an "in house" advantage? The interesting part comes with what choice one makes in the preview window - they give 4 levels of quality, from draft (unusable IMO), preview, good and best... each of those four levels has auto, full, half, and quarter options. I found trails on anything above preview/half, but that quality played back smooth and plenty clean. I could switch to higher qualities and see the individual frames sharpen up, but any movement became obvious too. The SR11 still looked very very sharp and detailed at the preview/half resolution, the CX7 was OK, but not quite as crisp.

THUS, my suspicion that there's some bumps in the AVCHD road yet to be smoothed out - maybe my computer/video card just isn't up to AVCHD (although it's not bad, and way above minimum specs, renders pretty fast, and editing is smooth). I'm going to have to do some test renders at higher resolutions and see what happens. But I think based upon what I'm seeing with the preview window differences, "motion trails" are a problem of the post processing, NOT the AVCHD recording/camera per se...

THUS, my suspicion that there's some bumps in the AVCHD road yet to be smoothed out - maybe my computer/video card just isn't up to AVCHD (although it's not bad, and way above minimum specs, renders pretty fast, and editing is smooth). I'm going to have to do some test renders at higher resolutions and see what happens. But I think based upon what I'm seeing with the preview window differences, "motion trails" are a problem of the post processing, NOT the AVCHD recording/camera per se...

I suspect your hunch is correct. Some/many of the codecs may still have bugs that manifest themselves in unexpected ways. I would tend to suspect the codecs more than your computer or video card, especially if you never have similar issues using other formats. In my own case, I use Linux primarily, and on Linux the only choice for using AVCHD is to first transcode it to something else, and the only reliable AVCHD decoder is the one that is part of the reference software made available by the Fraunhofer Institute.

Using this, I first transcode the AVCHD to huffyuv (or some other intermediate format), and I have not seen any trails at all other than very minor ghosting in low light from some cameras. OTOH, I have seen reports on the net of trails that were described as looking like special effects from a rock music video. Perhaps if you just drag a clip into Vegas with certain settings and didn't look further, it might be easy to jump to conclusions.

I'm actually pretty amazed at the quality of AVCHD video for the bandwidth it takes. It's beginning to rival HDV at 2/3 the bitrate, and the processors and codecs are only going to get better.

THUS, my suspicion that there's some bumps in the AVCHD road yet to be smoothed out - maybe my computer/video card just isn't up to AVCHD (although it's not bad, and way above minimum specs, renders pretty fast, and editing is smooth). I'm going to have to do some test renders at higher resolutions and see what happens. But I think based upon what I'm seeing with the preview window differences, "motion trails" are a problem of the post processing, NOT the AVCHD recording/camera per se...

I haven't been following too closely this aspect of the AVCHD 'drama', but unless I'm misunderstanding the issue, it wouldn't particularly bother me if there were anomolies in the preview window as long as the final output was clean. If artifacts were being introduced into final product, that's a different story.

I havent' rendered anything with the SR12 yet, I did some stuff mixed HDV and AVCHD (CX7) and didn't see any problem with trails, but it wasn't a high motion event... thought the CX7 looked better than the HDV footage though.......

Hey Dave. I am interested in how you mixed HDV and AVCHD footage. My friend has an FX7 and I have the SR11, and I want to be able to combine the footage from each cam into a final product to burn onto a DVD (both for regular DVDs and BR DVDs). Is this easily possible? (I have a quad core, 2 Gig Ram system)

Thanks.

Respectfully,
Mike

I mix my FX1 HDV and SR11 AVCHD clips by just placing them on the timeline in Vegas 8, editing in the normal way and rendering out to whatever. Takes a little while to render on my AMD 4200X2 for HDV, DV and MPEG2 output. Just to clarify the preview window in Vegas bears no connection to the rendered output, it is just that, a preview window at reduced resolution and frame rate that is selectable to reduce the CPU load when editing. Edius is different as it tries to display the actual output and with my PC it is unable to do this with HDV amd AVCHD on the timeline, but with conversion to Canopus HQ is of course just fine.

Ron Evans

As Ron says, just put both on a Vegas timeline - I ran multicam for switching, render was a bit slow, but final out SD 24P to DVD was great!

Thanks for the replies. Another question: How would one go about putting some kind of wind screen/wind sock on the SR11?

Respectfully,
Mike

Ron, I use Edius extensively for work and find the HQ codec to be excellent.

Yes Ken, Edius is my main editor and I agree HQ is good except my old PC cannot capture and convert at the same time so end up having to convert to HQ after capture and with three, two hour tracks at roughly 2.5 times realtime( and even more for AVCHD) it just isn't worth it. Edius 4.6 is able to use multicam with two HDV tracks and one DV track just fine. Even though video is an addictive retirement hobby time is still important as well as HQ demands much bigger disc space and speed!!!!! When I upgrade PC later in the year I will likely capture straight to HQ but for now raw files are the way for me. I normally use Vegas for audio ( have done from when it was just an audio editor) as well as Sound Forge but for video Edius is better. However at the moment for a single track edit mixing HDV and AVCHD Vegas is faster and easier to use.

Ron Evans

I've just tried Edius a few days ago.. No way you can do smooth AVCHD editing without a quad-core :/ Vegas handle the files quite nicely on the other hand.

Is there any adverse effect to editing, and rendering in a lower setting, like HD HQ or HD SP? Will your final product still be like it would've been had you done everything in HD FH?

Thanks,
Mike

I've just tried Edius a few days ago.. No way you can do smooth AVCHD editing without a quad-core :/ Vegas handle the files quite nicely on the other hand.

But when you convert to Edius' HQ files, you're good to go. The bigger issue is not having export to AVCHD capability at this point. I'm sure they will upgrade the program before too long. I'd much rather use Edius since it's a much more full-featured real-time program. It's been gaining a tremendous amount of support in the professional network arena...especially since Grass Valley took charge.

Is there any adverse effect to editing, and rendering in a lower setting, like HD HQ or HD SP? Will your final product still be like it would've been had you done everything in HD FH?

Thanks,
Mike

Mike, a friend of mine is absolutely convinced we'd lose nothing by going to the Canonpus HQ codec. Since I've done that many times with HDV, I've never seen an observable loss. Canopus codecs are probably the best there is. Since I've done so many A/Bs between my SR12 and Canon HV20, I'm pretty convinced there isn't any significant difference in resolution between the two, so I doubt you'd lose it on that end. But to me the issue is exporting. If I went to this trouble to go 'tapeless', why do I want my final AVCHD product to go back to tape?

I really don't plan on doing much editing with my personal stuff...I never have. I guess I do enough editing for work and don't get overly enthusiastic about doing it on my personal stuff. Maybe once I retire I can make that one of my projects. ;)

I'd much rather use Edius since it's a much more full-featured real-time program.

Much more full-featured in what ?

The ability to do real-time for almost all of your work, the more extensive use of filters, multi-cam and others.

Vegas works realtime for any operation/filter too, is bundled with several filters and has multicam support.. In fact, from the Edius feature list I don't see something you can't do with Vegas as well.

Robin, there are more filters within Edius, but if you prefer Vegas that's fine. I'm not here to convince you to use Edius. I thought you had Edius since you mentinoned you used it a few days ago. I've tried all of the programs and for me Edius is what I use professionally and wouldn't switch.

I've tried Vegas and didn't like the interface and did not find it handled AVCHD particularly well on my computer. In fact there was really no difference in how Vegas handled AVCHD as opposed to Edius Pro 4.5. Renders take forever with Vegas and most that have tried it say the same thing. I would probably use Edius and convert to the lossless (at least to the eye) Canopus HQ codec.

The fact is that AVCHD is a bear to edit and taxes even the most powerful computers out there.

Hopefully software and hardware will catch up with the very demanding AVCHD compression.

Robin, there are more filters within Edius

like ? Don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to figure what could miss in Vegas.

I thought you had Edius since you mentinoned you used it a few days ago

Indeed I have, since I said I used it a few days ago.. What's wrong in my sentence ?

]In fact there was really no difference in how Vegas handled AVCHD as opposed to Edius Pro 4.5.

That's the point you missed: Vegas has several preview mode that handle any complex operation realtime (while I did not find that in Edius, that's why AVCHD can't be played back realtime and need to be converted in another format).

I'm not here to convince you to use Vegas, that's your right not to like it... But I don't see how Edius would be more professional or more full-featured. Especially when it comes to what matters here, AVCHD.

Robin, it seems you and I just go round and round on every subject. If you have both programs then simply go into both and check out all the filters. That's all. If you like one over the other stick with it, that's fine. I'm not here to jot down each and every filter, effect and transition in each program to compare for you. The major reason aside from features that people choose editing programs is how well they like how it handles. For me nothing handles like Edius....for ME. You may feel differently and that's perfectly fine. There is no right or wrong answer.

I asked you whether you had Edius because in your sentence you could have seen someone else's and played with it, you could have downloaded a trial version etc. It didn't mean you still had it or owned it. Make sense?

Now where did I say that Edius is more 'professional' than Vegas? I DID say that Edius is being used by more and more broadcasters, but that's all I said.

As to previews in Vegas, it's one thing to 'preview' and it's an entirely different thing to render to a final product. It is this rendering that takes forever in Vegas.

Again, choose what you like, I like Edius and have used it for years and have no intention to switch.

Each to his own. I think we've beaten this one to death now and let's remember this is a thread for camcorder discussion not editing programs. So for me this subject is now closed so as not to bore everyone to death and not hijack this thread from its intended purpose.

Robin, it seems you and I just go round and round on every subject. If you have both programs then simply go into both and check out all the filters. That's all. [...] I'm not here to jot down each and every filter, effect and transition in each program to compare for you.

So, there's no reason you say Edius has more feature than Vegas. That's all I wanted to know.

I asked you whether you had Edius because in your sentence you could have seen someone else's and played with it, you could have downloaded a trial version etc. It didn't mean you still had it or owned it. Make sense?

Make sense.

let's remember this is a thread for camcorder discussion not editing programs. So for me this subject is now closed so as not to bore everyone to death and not hijack this thread from its intended purpose.

Agree too, I was just asking on your statements. But this subject is closed for me too. Back to the HF10 vs SR12 fight...

Mike, a friend of mine is absolutely convinced we'd lose nothing by going to the Canonpus HQ codec. Since I've done that many times with HDV, I've never seen an observable loss. Canopus codecs are probably the best there is. Since I've done so many A/Bs between my SR12 and Canon HV20, I'm pretty convinced there isn't any significant difference in resolution between the two, so I doubt you'd lose it on that end. But to me the issue is exporting. If I went to this trouble to go 'tapeless', why do I want my final AVCHD product to go back to tape?

I really don't plan on doing much editing with my personal stuff...I never have. I guess I do enough editing for work and don't get overly enthusiastic about doing it on my personal stuff. Maybe once I retire I can make that one of my projects. ;)

Hey Ken, how are doing today? I don't plan on putting my finished product to tape, but rather to DVD (someday BR). Using one of the cheaper editing programs, like Pinnacle, Ulead, etc., I want to reduce the rendering time, but don't want to lose any of the quality of the original shoot on the final product(or lose as little as possible). About as much as I want to pay for an editing program would be $200.00, so my options are limited.
Gee, Mike, what do you do with your final programs. Well, I put in a few transitions, chapters, titles, and maybe some background music, as well as trimming out the bad spots.

Thanks.

Respectfully,
Mike

IF you don't want to do anything really fancy stay with Sony Motion Browser and it can output to AVCHD or convert to a DVD for you. That is what i do with the family stuff. AVCHD to normal DVD-R, with simple menu like on the camera LCD, that will play on my PS3 ( BluRay player) and a DVD for everyone else. No quality loss as it is really a copy to DVD!!! IF you have a new Sony then the software that comes with it is all you need. Not the fanciest or fastest but able to do trimming and cuts editing etc.
My take on the Edius Vegas comparison. Edius for most DV projects will output realtime to tape and this is true for timelines with HQ tracks. Vegas can be setup to show realtime in the preview monitor just like Premiere Pro CS3 but reliable output to tape should be done through an export to tape which in most cases will render first to temp folder. I have Edius 4.6, Vegas 8 and Premiere Pro CS3. For DV and HDV Edius is the fastest to edit with , has the best multicam and excellent filters. Vegas is better for audio and keyframe control of everything, PPRo CS3 still has the best titler. Vegas is the slowest to render but for me has the better AVCHD at the moment.

Ron Evans

Hey Ken, how are doing today? I don't plan on putting my finished product to tape, but rather to DVD (someday BR). Using one of the cheaper editing programs, like Pinnacle, Ulead, etc., I want to reduce the rendering time, but don't want to lose any of the quality of the original shoot on the final product(or lose as little as possible). About as much as I want to pay for an editing program would be $200.00, so my options are limited.
Gee, Mike, what do you do with your final programs. Well, I put in a few transitions, chapters, titles, and maybe some background music, as well as trimming out the bad spots.

Thanks.

Respectfully,
Mike


Hi Mike...sounds like a plan. I think that's all you need to do for most of the family stuff. Let us know if you find any good programs for this kind of editing.

Ron, I agree, for really simple stuff the Sony software is probably all you need and as you said, you do maintain all of the PQ of the original.

Just to let you guys with the SR series know, you really need to see the results of using the 'photo' button on top of the camera and the results on a large screen plasma. In a word 'unreal'. I can't believe how good the color and clarity of these shots are! You can even zoom in a fair degree and still maintain clarity.

I'm just more impressed with this cam every day!

Just to let you guys with the SR series know, you really need to see the results of using the 'photo' button on top of the camera and the results on a large screen plasma. In a word 'unreal'. I can't believe how good the color and clarity of these shots are! You can even zoom in a fair degree and still maintain clarity.

I'm just more impressed with this cam every day!

Ken, 2 questions:

On the SR12, can the image stabilizer be made to stay active when taking a still?

I'm just curious, with the Canopus HQ codec, if it is lossless, in what ways is it better than other lossless codecs like huffyuv or FFV1? Since Edius is getting a lot of good press, I downloaded a demo version to try it out, but may not get a chance for a while now as my main computer died late last night :(