Confused about Canon HF10

[Brian Berneker]

One is the HF100 and the other is the HF10. They are identical except that one has built in memory and the other only uses external cards.

They both use AVCHD which in my opinion you should stay away from. 17MB/s with limited editing options and a “moving too fast” warning when you pan, versus a nice 25MB/s HDV stream on the HV30 with a larger chip.

The only sacrifice is that the HV30 is tape instead of flash. If they came out with an HDV flash camcorder then I would mess my pants and buy one right away, but for now my two HV30s are well cared for and well appreciated…

[Craig Cooper]

Tell me, does the HV30 capture MPEG2 to tape? I know the HF10 and 100 capture in AVCHD which may require 17Mb for the same quality. I have asked the question before about the difference between the 2 codecs.

Cheers Craig

Peace Talks Hamper War in Middle East

[Brian Berneker]

The HV30 captures HDV, not MPEG2, at 25MB/s. I know that AVCHD is basically an H.264 type codec with tighter compression, but this is processor hungry. I suppose someone could argue that AVCHD at 17MB/s is as goood as HDV at 25, but you still have to factor in the software you are using, generational loss in editing (EVEN BEFORE YOU START), and how much of your CPU you want to be eating up just to be able to even work with the stream… The AVCHD cameras actually have a WARNING about panning too fast because it can’t compress the movement fast enough! I’d prefer HDV for that reason alone, but the HV30 has some other features that stand out too.

I really wanted an HF series camera, or at least a hard drive based one, but in the end it was the size of the chip and the 30PF mode on the HV30 that sold me. MiniDV tapes aren’t going anywhere soon, so I’m not worried about running out of tape, though you could burn through some flash cards pretty quick. HDV is also a very standardized workflow, and while there is ground being broken for AVCHD, it’s more a delivery format straight to blu-ray than for editing.

That being said, if you just want to straight shoot and transfer with little or no post, then you might be ok, but if you want to do any kind of intense editing, you should take a second look.

Mind you, if your budget can take you up higher to $3000-3500, you get into a whole other league of cameras that blow the HV30 away, but in it’s price rance, it’s arguably your best shot.