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An "unsung" attribute that this camcorder has is that is also takes amazing photos. I will just tell you what I would want to know if I considered buying this item: I think it's great, it works, it's easy to use (there are many more functions I haven't even explored yet, but if you're a more experienced cinematographer I'm sure you can find them helpful), it shoots great footage (also in HD if you want). The colors it captures are bright, great contrast, and you don't need to correct them in Photoshop.The camcorder is MAC compatible and the battery life is also very very good.The only thing that constitutes a slight inconvenience is that in order to download the footage on your computer, you must have the camcorder's power cable hooked up.Besides that I can say that I'm very happy with it and the quality of the video. This is the first camcorder I have ever owned as well as operated in my life. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not an electronics expert, so I won't write a very technical review as many others have.
When at home, I hook up the camera to our Sony 42" LCD with the HD cable, and people are blown away by the quality. PROS:- EXCELENT VIDEO QUALITY: performs true to HD quality- Great size for travelling- 40GB Hard Drive more than enough space, even for extended vacation times- Good size LCD screenCONS:- Ergonimics could be better- Sound quality is merely OK.- Editing video software is extremely basic, and unless you have a VERY POWERFUL PC, don't even try editing these HD videos. my Sony Vaio stalled ALL the time.You must purchase the HD cable separately, and an extra battery (the one that comes with the camera lasts only two hours). I've been using videocams since the betamax tapes first came out, and I've upgraded throughout the years as the technology advanced. In conclusion, I'd buy this camera 10 times over. I did my homework, and finally purchased the HG10. I wanted a well priced product, HD, and stop depending on tapes or discs. I've been using it for a couple months now, and am extremely pleased with the performance.
However, the scrolling wheel can be tough to control. I am by no means a camcorder expert, but I am a videophile and a Canon fan, so that's why I chose this camera. While 1080p would have been great, the birth of my son wasn't going to wait for technology to catch up to the top format. Where it lacks (usability, adjustments, etc) it more than makes up for it in the video quality department--and that's what matters most, right.
Anyways, people have talked about the software ad nauseam.so I won't get into that, except to say that the lack of available software to watch AVCHD files is frustrating, at best. The bottom line is that the HG10 excels at what a budget HD camcorder should--great video quality and (virtually) unlimited storage. None of this would be a problem if I used it more often. It's not like there isn't room, even on the tiny device.
I rest easy knowing that it won't end up like my honeymoon footage that is grainy, lacks definition and, *gasp*, is in analog format on tapes. After not using the camcorder for a while, I forgot how to turn on the light, so it would be nice to have a few more dedicated buttons. It does not disappoint. It is easy to get stuck in ff or rewind mode by accident.
The menus are easy to understand like my Canon digital camera. It has been great capturing all of the big "firsts" in high-def. I love the hard drive.it seemed the obvious choice over straight-to-dvd or memory card recording for so many reasons--no media to keep up with, speed and flexibility, and unmatched storage capacity.The 'usability' of the camera is good, but not great.
I bought an HG10 after seeing so many good reviews on this camcorder. I also found that the 24P was not useful. The video of my almost two-year old Sony SR5 hard drive HD camcorder is so much better than the HG10 -much higher resolution and better color. The SR11 also produced much better video than the HG10 in all lighting conditions -indoor, outdoor, good and low light conditions.
I am not sure how many of those reviewers had compared the HG10 head to head with some other HD camcorders. HG10 also has some other features that the Sony's don't have, for example, a wide range of manual shutter speed. I found the standard shutter speed (1/60 second) is appropriate for all of my need for family video. I returned the HG10 and kept the SR11 and I have taken tons of videos with the SR11. Many of the reviews claimed that HG's video quality is excellent. However, I was disappointed by the video quality.
Although a wide range manual shutter speed is very important for a still picture camera, I don't think it is useful for a camcorder unless you are a "pro". I am happy with the amazingly good videos taken by the SR11. I than bought a Sony SR11 and compared the SR11 with the HG10 head to head. I have to say the HG performs pretty well at low light but the resolution and color is still not as good as the Sonys (SR5 and SR11).
On SP, over an hour of footage only used about 10% of the storage. It allows you to convert all movies to Mpegs manually, or will do it automatically when creating a DVD. Stabilization was not perfect, but came out nice once I steadied myself.Half of my shots were with low light, either at the fireworks shows in the Magic Kingdom & Epcot, or on rides. When hooked up straight to my TV, or viewing from the AVCHD DVD created, footage came out like I was still there. I found that if low-light focusing was a problem, manually zooming in & out would quickly correct the situation. As your average camcorder user, I've found this very easy to use right out of the box.
My first shots were from the monorail, while moving. It works fastest when burning straight to AVCHD DVD, and can take a very long time if converting first.The clarity of the pictures on SP format (2nd only to XP) was true HD quality, and used less space than I thought after 4 days. While there are plenty of options to enhance your shots, this does a great job in a very basic shooting mode.With multiple formats for shooting, the storage is excellent for most 3-7 day vacations. I was able to zoom in on a full screen shot of Tinkerbell, launching off the castle at the start of the fireworks, with amazing clarity.While the movie software it comes with takes some understanding, it does work well. The next time I go, I will be using the XP format, now that I know I have plenty of storage space.All in all, was an excellent choice, well worth the money for such fantastic footage. The first time I used this was on a 4 day trip to Walt Disney World, where I go frequently.
Almost all of them came out perfect, with the exception of a couple that were out of focus.
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