Does anyone know how long it takes to copy one hour of HD footage from the internal memory over to a SDHC card in SD.

I tried it on G10, it's about 10 min, I think XA10 will have the same results

If it can make a SD copy quickly, we now have something to hand to a client when required! I called Canon and they had no answer. I hope someone will run a test and confirm.

Thanks Buba.

I'm going to guess that this is also the case, considering the internals are the same on the XA10.


I tried it on G10, it's about 10 min, I think XA10 will have the same results

I didn't time it but it is slow - seems to take 1/3 to 1/2 real time to convert from HD to SD (from one card to the other.) It makes a muxed mpeg file that you can't do anything with in Final Cut but works in iMovie.

I think you can record to both cards simultaneously, so you can make a duplicate HD avchd copy as you record.

One good thing: the A/V output is clean - no red record dot or anything on the image so you can output SD to a deck or A/D converter to get a firewire signal into your computer for livestreaming or editing. Unfortunately, you lose your headphones when you switch it to A/V output.

your post is a bit confusing, well quite confusing.

We are talking about *copying* files, not converting them. There is no conversion going on, so you are talking about something else.

We were talking about a straight copy of video footage files from 1 card to another. When the process is over, both cards would be exactly the same. There is NO conversion going on, it's a straight copy. so whatever you were timing is not what we were talking about... hmm...

If it can make a SD copy quickly, we now have something to hand to a client when required! I called Canon and they had no answer. I hope someone will run a test and confirm.

Thanks Buba.
any time,
and you can shoot two slots at the same time,
I will time tonight 16Gb full card copy, and let you know

thanks from me too Buba !

I think the original poster Dan was asking about copying "in SD" which I took to mean converting.

Hi Chuck,

My apologies, I just re-read Dan's original post, and you are correct, he did say SD.

Sorry abut that !

I was not aware that the Canon XA10 could do this.... so it can take HD footage you have recorded, and convert it in-the-camera and spit it out in SD ( standard def) onto a memory card ?

If this is so, that's cool. I have no clue why somebody would want to do this, but perhaps there are reasons.

Yes, the XA10 will convert to standard def from one card to the other, but as I said, it's a muxed mpeg file that may or may not be of use to news people and others who want to post or broadcast footage immediately. It's possible to do this with an Eye-Fi card in slot B so you could transmit clips directly from the camera.

So I timed it this time,
1:27:48 on a formatted 16Gb card before record stops, and it took me 14:26 to copy from A to B, both cards class 6, I'm guessing it would be faster if I'd use class 10, not sure though, but I'll try

wow, 1 hour 27 mins...... that's a long time.

I do not think I would ever want to *convert* video on my XA10 or HF G10, that's a lot of heat, and use ( wear and tear ) you are putting on it.

I'd much rather do that on the computer, and leave the camera to rest.

Thanks for doing that test Buba !

the timing was NOT for converting HD to SD, for that I would use computer too:),
but for copy of 1hr and 27 min of video, all that fit on 16Gb card, from the card A slot to card B slot