Canon HV20, HG10 or HF 100 for Macbook users?

Question

I have been researching for some time now, and I am sure the next camcorder I will buy will be one of the 3 listed, but I can not rely on the Best Buy or Circuit City guys for i feel the all keep wanting me to go with the one they retail for the most.

I would greatly appreciate any help or intelligent advice on this matter

Answer 1

HV20 uses miniDV tape. Best available video quality using DV or HDV format because of lowest amount of compression applied during the video capture process. You will need to buy a 4-pin to 6-pin firewire400 cable (one is not included in the box). iMovieHD and FinalCut work fine with it - you may need to manually install the Apple Intermediate Code (on the system discs that cam with your Mac) - do a custom install just for that component) to deal with the high definition video.

The HG10 is hard drive based. It stores highly compress MPEG2 or even more compressed AVCHD video. Only the most current iMovieHD08 or the most current FinalCut versions can deal with this relatively new storage format. The video data files copy over USB. Decoding AVCHD can take some time. Translating the MPEG2 file may require download and install of StreamClip. HDD cameras do not like LOUD noise for extended periods and have problems with high altitude.

The HF100 is a flash memory - standard definition only - camcorder. Translating the MPEG2 file may require download and install of StreamClip.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/vi...

If you want my recommendation, I would buy the HV20 (or more current HV30). The pros continue to use MiniDV tape - it is cheap, good for long-term storage and continues to provide the best available video quality - among other reasons.