Canon VIXIA HF20 HD Dual Flash Memory with

Excellent camera — PQ and Zoom are exceptional
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This review is based on the Vixia HF21, not the HF20. Amazon does not yet list the HF21, but the two are similar enough that this review applies to both. The biggest difference is that the HF21 has a 64GB hard drive (and so costs about $100 more), compared to the 32GB of the HF20.

I bought my HF21 at Best Buy about a week ago when it was on sale for $799, and have been extremely happy with it. I am just knocked out by the picture quality. A lot depends on the lighting conditions, but when you get that just right (and you learn quickly how to perfect that) the films are stunning. To take full advantage, be sure to film in the MXP mode (24 mbps) – the highest quality option. When playing back on your TV, use either the component cable (provided) or the HDMI cable (not provided). Do not use the red-white-yellow, standard video cable (also provided) if you want HD quality. I tried viewing the same videos with both that and then with the component cable, and the difference is like that between average and stunning. I haven’t tried the HDMI yet. I also haven’t yet tried videos filmed in the lower quality levels than MXP (it has 5 levels).

I’ve only taken a few photos, and they were in poor lighting conditions, so I can’t comment on the photo abilities, other than it’s clearly better than the several lower price models I’ve had experience with.

The zoom is exceptional. It has 15x optical zoom. But the digital zoom is surprisingly good. In fact I compared this to one of the Sony Handycams with 60x optical zoom, and the DIGITAL zoom on this at better than 60x is better than the Sony’s OPTICAL zoom at 60x. And the image stabilizer of this camera is amazingly better than the Sony. Holding in one’s hands (no tripod) one can actually take relatively stable pictures at 60x or more, especially if you practice at it. So don’t be put off by the mere 15x optical zoom. The digital zoom is fantastic.

The controls seem kind of confusing at first, but, like with anything, as you use it more you adjust and get used to it. Now I find them all convenient and useful. There are so many options available for improving PQ through different settings for different conditions, including manual focus, that it will take an amateur like me much time to perfect this, but I’m finding that just using the “automatic” settings provides drop-dead magnificent enough films that I haven’t had much need to do much tinkering.

As to the software that comes with it, the best I can say is for some purposes it’s adequate, but not for others. You can load your movies and pics onto your computer and watch them without much difficulty. You can easily load the HD movies onto YouTube. Burning them to CD for home use is where I’m running into problems. You can’t burn these as is onto DVD. You need a Blu-Ray burner and need a Blu-Ray disc to burn onto. Otherwise you have to convert these films to a conventional format, and you can’t convert them with this software. The one conversion I have made is when I loaded something to YouTube, then converted it to MP4 format using YouTube. There are software programs out there that you can get to do these conversions. I’m about to get a new computer with a Blu-Ray burner, so I’m holding off until I get that.

You can do some editing with the software. I’ve edited where I want some films to start and stop, and added music, and saved that to a file. I believe you can also combine several clips into one. Also you can create captions. But the software seems kind of slow and not really very well designed.

All in all I am greatly impressed with this camera and am excited about perfecting my skills, making some good films, and getting a computer with a Blu-Ray burner.

Excellent Vidcam
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This a sweet vidcam! It is compact, light, ergonomical, (seems like it should be a word fully-featured and beautifully made. I am completely satisfied with it’s performance. Sure, it could do better indoors, but I added the optional light, and it works well. I find the menus a breeze, but I highly recommend investing some time to read the manual and get to know all the functions and menu layouts.

I agree with another reviewer that Canon should have included the wall charger, (Canon included a wall charger with my point-n-shoot camera, why not this $$$ vidcam?) but I don’t feel that should affect the rating this camera gets.

And I didn’t get wrapped up with concern over the software in deciding on a vidcam. It wasn’t important to me. (I have a Mac computer running Final Cut Studio 2 and therefore have no issues.)

So I have nothing to complain about, and lots to be happy with!!!

Excellent choice!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was searching for a camcorder which can take HD videos, compact in size and has good consumer reviews.

This camcorder fits perfectly fine in my requirements.

Starting off with cons (since they are very few):

1) Pricy: Yes unfortunately this camcorder is priced way too up for entry level users.

Pros:

1) Excellent video quality.

2) compact size

3) looks amazing.

4) easy to use.

I would highly recommend this camcorder to someone looking for compact easy to use HD video taking capability but doesn’t mind spending few hundreds of $$ more..

Very good camera with some drawbacks
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
There are pleanty of reviews on the HF20/HF200 out there, so I’ll just give a few highlights on what I found to be better or worse than expected.

Initial video quality: Stepping up from Aiptek ActionHD GVS’s, the quality was actually not that much better! Indoor colors here more accurate and low-light performance was greatly improved, but average shooting is quite similar. This is good (for me at least) so if I use this camera in conjunction with the Aipteks for a project, their won’t be an obvious difference between the sources. The bad is just it costs 3-times as much, but I guess the money went other places (microphone, lens, optical stabilizer, brand name!)

Low-Light performance: People tend to overestimate what these cameras can do. As the shutter speed goes down, quality becomes softer. It also seems to bump the exposure/ISO up making the image more grainy. While it does look quite grainy on the LCD, outputted videos, especially those down-scaled to DVD look very good. I think in general CMOS sensors tend to be more grainy than the more traditional CCD sensors we’re used to. I’ve noticed this in my new SLR and now in this Canon.

Photos: Honestly, I’m quite surprised in the quality of the photos. Even shooting items across a dim room (using flash of course) images are well exposed and relatively sharp. Aside from the lack of resolution, the images produced are exceptional for a camcorder.

Ports: I’m quite disappointed when I see reviews bashing the camera for lack of firewire. Even if this camera DID have firewire, I can’t see it being used the same way miniDV/Digital8 cameras used it. People need to realize this camera is flashed based and does not require the media to be streamed. Downloading the footage is tremendously faster than streaming it “real-time”. But Firewire aside, there are plenty of ports on this camera. I’m very glad to see the microphone port accepts both mono and stereo mics. My only dislikes are how so many ports have their own doors. While this keeps it looking clean, when you start using many external devices/plugs, there are plastic flaps laying everywhere. I also really don’t like how the camera MUST be plugged into AC before you can connect to a PC.

File Format: I was a little confused at the .MTS extension, but my computers played it flawlessly without any additional software. Just load the K-Lite codec Pack – Standard and you’ll be good to go. As for computers, both my C2D T5550 laptop and i7-920 desktop played the videos smoothly (though I’m mostly testing using SP video). Now, I am a bit disappointed in all the junk within the memory. Rather than simply having the videos, there are many directories, even thumbnails for the videos. While this may increase performance while browsing the camera’s memory, I typically dump all the video to my computer and sift through it there. I wish there were some way of just having a “Videos” folder on the flash.

I guess that’s about it. All in all I’m pleased with this camera. I do wish it’s price was a bit less, but the HF20/HF200 are still probably some of the best HD camcorders currently on the market.

Nice small camcorder! Software not good at all.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The software does not work on 64 bit XP computers. Canon is little or no help in this regard. Have to purchase AVCHD editing software to be able to download.

The pre-record function is difficult to find. Who knew the joy-stick up arrow brings up a menu available no were else, and only in 2/3 modes. Otherwise the camera is very nice.

Can record to the 32GB internal fixed or an internal removable SDHC card, but make sure you get grade-4 or higher for speed. The combination works out to be a good bit of recording time. A 16GB SDHC is about 80 minutes in max resolution, so the 32GB internal is good for another 160. Face recognition appears to work very well.

Canon HV20 3MP High Definition MiniDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

Awesome Camera
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great camera, very intuitive menus, very easy to use, extremely light and small. Battery life is not as bad as described by some. Would definitely recommend this over the hf200 which doesn’t have the internal memory. It is definitely worth the extra money if you research the price of high-quality, high-capacity SDHC cards.

Canon VIXIA HF20, Nice Camera but hard to use
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I have been using a Digital Camcorder for several years and thought it would be a good time to upgrade to HD Video with the Canon VIXIA HF20. I was wrong.

First, the bad. I first shot some video and the results were much worse than my standard digital video. After reading through the manual I found how to set the camera up to shoot HD video and only after selecting the best HD video recording mode was the quality better than my standard digital video. Then I tried to download the video to the PC. Reading the manual for this was frustrating. But, After some effort I did it. I found the USB interface next to the clearly labeled HDMI interface. I installed the PIXELA software, got all the cables connected, set the camera to video mode, turned on the camera and hit the “picture of camera with two arrows and a play symbol” button. Yes, I was then able to downloaded the video onto my 3 Gigahertz Dell computer and attempted to play the video. The video playback was unacceptable. It skipped several frames at a time and only played the top third of the scenes. I assume the problems are due to my computer being underpowered. I upgraded the hard drive to see if there was an improvement but this just resulted in the software no longer working with tech support unable to tell me why. I’ll probably have to get a newer faster computer to see if the video playback and editing works. Of course, once I do edit the HD video, what do I do with it. There really isn’t a cost effective standardized media to write HD video productions at this time. I’ll leave the video on the hard drive until the Blue ray recorders and media become reasonably priced.

Now, the good. The 32 GB of memory provides for plenty of recording time, at least for me. After recording 11 days of vacation in High Dev I still have 1 hour 20 minutes of recording time left. Playing the video on a TV through the Component interface on the camera looks great. The camera is very compact and light and easy to handle. It takes good still photos that look very nice on the computer screen and TV.

Overall a nice little camera but as it is hard to learn to use and as the HD video really isn’t viewable on a standard computer configuration, I’m only giving it two stars.

The PC power that you will need to watch the video
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought the HF10 from Amazon and love it; its amazing. The HF20 is the next generation of that camera line and it produces .MTS file format (AVCHD) high-definition files. I just want to warn all perspective buyers that what they state in the Pixela software manual about the minimum requirements in order to actually be able to watch/ edit the highest-res video that comes off this camera are true and cannot be ignored: I have a Pentium 4 @ 3.6Ghz and 2 GB RAM and a PCIx video card and it is not good enough to play the video back smoothly (using Pixela software player) wihtout dropping frames ! The amount of system or video RAM is not the key; you MUST have either a fast Pentium “D” class or a Pentium Core 2 Duo (at least) processor (with matching motherboard w/ Intel chipset) or you can’t really play/edit the highest res of video that comes out of this camera! (Note that my PC can archive the video to hard drive, DVD etc , just not smoothly playback and edit). Playback and editing may be possible on a lesser system but the performace will leave you unhappy most likely. Hope this helps with your search.

Fantastic Camcorder
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Really good picture quality, love the size and the file transfer capability using an SD card. Downsides are the low battery life (you will need a spare battery if you are recording for more than an hour) and the video file format which is Sony’s.MTS and requires special software (supplied w/ camera) to be able to read the file and to edit the video.

Mac compatible? I think not.
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I wasn’t as thorough when doing my research for a Video Camcorder. I assumed that this high end model would work seamlessly on a mac, but it doesn’t. I had to buy some 3rd party software to convert the windows video files to mac compatible files that i could use in iMovie, etc. It’s a real pain in the butt!

Best Bang For Your Buck
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I researched my Canon hf20 from [...] and found it very helpful and clicked the amazon link.This Camcorder is by far the best camera you can but unless you spend 3k on the xha1s.Professional looking video at an affordable price.My snowboarding videos look like im watching a shaun white video HIGHLY RECOMENDED!!!!

Good camcorder
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
We have used this camcorder three or four times now and it fits the bill nicely. Picture quality is a little noisy in low light but the rest of the time the picture is stunning.

The internal memory is sufficient to record at least 2 hours at the highest resolution. The controls are simple enough that even the kids can use it.

Downloading the videos to a Macbook (with Leopard) into iMovie 09 works fine. The files are large so invest in more hard drive space.

Overall we are happy with the camcorder.

Fantastic Camcorder
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve had the HF 20 for about an hour. It’s simply the best camcorder I’ve ever owned. I work on an older (3 years) Intel Core Duo Mac and iMovie ’09 and there are no issues. The image quality (even a step below HD) is stunning.

I’m accustomed to Canon menus and the menus on the HF 20 take a little getting used to, but an hour out of the box and I’ve edited a two minute movie (FXP @ 24FPS).

I highly recommend this camera, but you need the right computer and editing software. Forget the software that comes with it.

One additional caution: You’ll have to play with the quality level that you shoot in if you plan to send your video to friends and family. Many receiving computers cannot handle very high quality video. I’ve had good success with FXP (one step below HD).

I would preffer an SD camcoreder instead of HD
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The picture quality is not that good as was written in the reviews I’ve read. More than that, you need a very powerful PC in order to watch or procees the movies you take, thus, I would prefer and SD camcorder.

Canon VIXIA HF20 HD Dual Flash Memory with 32 GB Internal Memory and 15x Optical Zoom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Bought this product about three weeks ago and used it to record my kids activities. The video came out great and also the pictures too. I have no complaining on this camera. Menu is also very easy to use and navigate.

One thing Canon should do is to include the extra external battery charger.

Cannon VIXIA HF20 HD Review
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Overall a very nice digital camcorder. The only negative I have experienced is creating standard DVD’s from the recorded video. It’s easy to make Blue Ray DVD’s but it’s it doesn’ appear to be easy to make standard DVD’s I have tried twice and have been unsuccessful.

Mac-friendly, even for users new to camcorders.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
After a frustrating week of trying to learn how to transfer video from an otherwise exquisite Sony camcorder to my 24-inch, 2.6 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac (running OX 10.5.6 and iMovie 09), we returned the Sony to Amazon (thanks, Amazon!) and replaced it with this Canon.

The Sony manual, website, and tech support were useless to me as a Mac user, but the Canon manual told me everything I needed to know. I didn’t need to spend hours scouring the Net for workarounds. I didn’t have to call Canon’s Tech Support.

This Canon is all previous reviewers say it is. But for me, an experienced Mac user new to modern camcorders, it was especially valuable because Canon’s built-in support of Macs shortened the learning curve (and, fellow newbies, there IS a learning curve!) tremendously.

Experienced camcorder users running PCs will find the Sony virtually perfect in every way; less experienced camcorder users, on the other hand, will likely find the Sony manual — which appears to have been written by experienced users for experienced users — of little help at all. Mac users new to today’s camcorders will weep, scream, and be sorely tempted to throw the whole thing against the nearest brick wall.

The Mac’s notoriously creative user base can only wonder, sadly, at Sony’s failure to support that not-insignificant segment of the marketplace — and, likewise, marvel at Canon’s commitment to doing so.

In short: Mac users, think Canon.

Great camera overall. Be aware of requirements
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’m not going to review the camrea, because it’s a great product from canon and it is a nice upgrade from regular digital video. I just want to comment on few “issues” people have with the camera and you need to consider before buying it:

+ Quality in low light. Most cameras perform better in regular light. In low light, the video is grainy and not nice. You need a LIGHT if you are planning to use it mostly in low light. Canon has some but they are quite expensive.

+ Computer edit. You need a newer computer for playback. To edit it will be also faster in a new computer. You also need a special video editor to edit the HD files.

+ Slow transfer to computer. It’s slow because of USB 2.0, but you can transfer it as you shoot the video, instead of doing it all at once. I believe they don’t added firewire because it’s not widely supported in most computers.

+ Battery life. Yes, it last around 1 hours, so? Get another one. Most product use lcd displays, replacing optical viewfinder. This makes them smaller and compact. Most camcorders will last the same.

+ HD Video + Blu Ray = Great videos. You should use HD with Blu Ray, not DVDs to get the most of it.

+ This is not a digital camera. Don’t expect great pictures. The technology to combine video and photos is still not here.

I am amazed people complain about little things when it has nothing to do with the camera. Why do you spend this kind of money if you don’t want to spend a few more in accessories? In order to use a product you need to meet some requirements AND GET EDUCATED. One of the reviewer gave it 2 stars because he can’t even read the manual.

Awsome camcorder
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Picture quality on this HF20 is amazing during the day. (I did not test it at night) Its just too bad that ones I upload my sharp looking film into Youtube, it degrades the quality. Stupid Youtube needs to drastically improve there HD quality output. One thing to note is that you will need a very powerful computer. I have a quad core CPU and my CPU usage goes up to 100% when I edit and render my video.

Also, if you plan on using it for a long time I recommend get an extra bigger battery. Other then that its an amazing camcorder. I did not know you can get such an amazing picture quality out of a small camcorder such as this.

Fail in three weeks, poor support!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I have never wrote a review in my life and I really want to share my experience with everyone this time. I bought this camera for a 8 months business trip to Hong Kong. I have purchased 2 extra battery pack BP-809 for it so I have a total of 3 batteries. After 2 weeks, the camcorder start having problem recognizing the batteries, at first I can fix the problem by switching between the pack, 3 days ago it won’t even take any of my batteries! I call Canon locally in Hong Kong and they said they will have to charge me just to LOOK at it, repair cost extra!!! I am very disappoint at Canon, I have been a customer forever, I have a 40D, 50D, 5DmkII and tons of Lens from you guys and the quality has been superb. The first digi cam I bought and I’ve got problem from it in less than a month and Canon won’t even try to help. I am stuck here in Asia, I need this camera to do my job and if I ship it back to US it will cost me a lot of money and time… Beside, I really hate the idea of repairing and crack open an expensive camera in it’s first month, I even called Canon USA back home and ask if they can help… After an hour wait time with an international phone call, the answer is very disappointing: unless I can ship the camera back, there is nothing they can do… I don’t understand it, I have a service center less than a mile away, and yet they still trying to tell me I am stuck… How’s that for customer service?

Great Video if you don’t have to edit
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
This camcorder DOES NOT COME WITH FIREWIRE! expect slower than tape downloads, and you will need a third party software to edit the video unless you have latest imovie. I’ve gone back to using the standard def tape video for my videos because dealing with these files is a real headache. If you have a PC and don’t edit and don’t mind waiting forever for your transfers (which will crash if over 2 minute pieces when transferring) then this camcorder works fine. If you want to edit, work with in any way, and own a mac save yourself some brain damage and get a Sony. Canon won’t let me replace it so may you learn from my lesson. Good Luck

Fantastic Camera, but not made for a mac.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I shopped around for a camera of this quality for a long time. The price is up there, but it is worth it. Just don’t pay more than $800 for it.

Its functionality as a camera is suburb. It is intuitive and it shots beautiful video, especially in its cinematic mode. Really, you can’t get this kind of quality from any other camera in its price range.

The flaw with this camera is that it doesn’t get along with macs all that great. I have a macbook pro from 2008 and the download speed is frustratingly slow. Its very irritating that they did not make this camera with firewire. There is no way to import the video directly to either imovie (which is an awful app anyways) or FCE. I have to copy the whole video to my HD, then import it to FCE where I then need to find and cut up the clips I actually want to use. This is time consuming and space consuming. If it had firewire, I could pick the sections of video that I want, and just import those directly from the camera.

So, if you are not too worried about quickly editing a lot of footage, this camera is perfect.

Very good
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I really like this camera.

Really compact and I could carry this in my jacket pocket. Picture quality is good though night time recording is not so good.

Still photographs are good and it gives me the control on exposure on shutter speed as well.

Awesome
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is an absolutely Awesome camcorder, HOT! HOT! HOT WOW, it is a blow away, I had the HF 100 and also the HF S100 and the HF 20 is so superior in image quality, used with my Macbook Pro it is a seamless team.

Don’t believe the critics regarding low light quality
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Prior to this camera, I had the Canon Vixia HV30. Great camera but I never could get used to the extra bulk of HDV tape since I like to use my camera for outdoor activities. I researched and analyzed the different models and went with this one. I liked that is was Flash memory and not a hard drive camera (HG20) ( hard drives eventually go out in your computer, why would I want to risk it with a camera, also if you drop it, you could ruin the hard drive). The one thing that had me worried was the seemingly endless criticisms of how this camera fails to produce a quality video in low light conditions. This review of the HF 200 which is the same camera without the flash memory changed my mind: [...]. I am SO glad that I did not go with the HF11 or the HG20. Trust me, I analyzed this to death but I am very happy with this camera and do not have any regrets. Most people who think this camera doesn’t perform in low light are the same people that never adjust the settings from AUTOMATIC. If you are on the fence, just purchase it! And when you do, buy it from Amazon. I had a scare when I attempted to buy my last camera from internet dealer that was not reputable – if you find this camera for a very low price somewhere else, you are likely getting a “gray” market version, don’t do it. Amazon has never let me down, return policy is fair and processing is fairly quick.

Great video camera
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great video camera. I compared about 20 different camera and finally decided on the Canon HF20. It is light, reliable and you can upload video from it to a variey of online video sites without haveing to trascode the video first.

Pros – Inexpensive for what it does, GREAT video, good in indoor lighting, it is very small. 32Gb of internal flash is huge if you only do the “medium” quality setting. The medium quality setting is still outstanding! The photos it takes are really good, even id the still photos are 3.2 mega-pixel. The “Dual Shot” photos look really good also, I am not sure what resolution.

Cons – If your PC does not meet the minimum requirements, you might want to get a new PC first. I have a 2.4 GHz single core PC with 1 GB of RAM and it is too slow to watch the videos. For watching and especially editing – you will need a 2.4 GHz dual core or better with at least 2 GB RAM. If you are going to do a lot of indoor video, get the light. If you think you can get by with 120 minutes of video on one battery, then you are all set. If you get the video light (it is powered by the camcorder) or want to be able to charge one battery while using another – get an additional battery and a quick charger. The software it comes with does not seem to be able to edit the videos, just download and view. Prepare to spend more money on editing software. I spent $60 on Pinnacle Studio 14 HD and it works well so far.

One last thing – It gets HOT making video. I have not had a problem with this yet, but it will be interesting to see what happens when I make a video and it is 100 degrees outside.

I got the HF20, the VL-5 light, the BP-827 (300+ minute of record time without the light), the quick wall charger, a UV lens protector and a 32 GB SDHC card. I am astonished at what this cam can do!

Works better than you’d expect.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
When it comes to filming and making it look good, lighting is everything. As long as there is adaquate light in your shot, the HF20 will give you a crisp, vivid picture that looks great on HDTVs. AVCHD is gaining greater support, and on my Mac, it’s as easy to work with as P2 downloads. Both iMovie and Final Cut Pro (Version 7) can easily ingest footage from the camera. I highly recommend springing for a shotgun mic that sits in the hot shoe, and a higher capacity battery. With 32GB storage, you need a better battery before you can ever expect to full the memory on a single shoot. Very easy to use, and very favorable results.

Awsome !
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
An amazing HD cam from Canon. I couldn’t believe how tiny the hf 20 is. I am almost afraid it might slip out of hands. Video quality is very impressive. The 32 gb internal memory really helps because if you are shooting in 1080p then it is very easy to run out of storage. I still haven’t transferred the videos onto my computer and/or used any of the editing software tools. So I can’t say anything about them. But the product itself is excellent.Hghly recommend it to anyone.

Finally I can transfer good quality video to the computer – FAST!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This won’t be a long review. I really don’t do reviews. But I’ll tell you what I like.

I can shoot a video. Go home and back it up to my computer in minutes. And erase the video on my camera. Nowadays hard drives are cheap. Get a terabyte drive for about [...]. or so. Who cares if it’s the fastest on the planet. It’s a place to store you high def videos.

I don’t burn to Blue ray. It’s too expensive still. So I convert my hi-def video to Mpeg2 and burn the result to DVD. The quality is outstanding! I have a [...]OPPO dvd player with built in “up-conversion” and the resulting videos I make “pop” off of my HDTV screen.

You’ve heard by now that yesterdays computers bog down handling hd camera files. That’s true. If you don’t have a dual-core processor and a decent computer you will get frustrated. But… one day you WILL have a better computer. And the same files that frustrate you today will be easy to use tomorrow… so don’t dispare.

I have a vision too… that more and more people will buy the HD camcorders and store their precious moments to a hard drive. And someone will build an inexpensive interface that allows you to connect your terabyte drive directly to your HD TV and control it with your TV remote. No more conversions. Just watch your HD videos with the push of a button. They are working on it. Maybe a year or so away. You just watch.

I have posted a link to a youtube video made with my camera. This was done in subdued lighting in a church standing about thirty feet away. The anti-shake is turned on. The video is cruched down to be able to upload it to youtube. Still… for the setting, I think the quality is great!

[...]

Great little camera!!! Love it!

Great Camera but Watch out for Accessories!!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Functionally this camera is fantastic….lightweight, small and has incredible image quality. Well laid out controls. Just a caution is that most people will not be able to actually make use of its outstanding image quality without a Blu-ray burner and Blu-ray player as in iMovie and many other programs the quality is imported at a reduced quality and you cannot burn HD quality movies on regular DVD’s. This is not this camera’s fault however as all HD cameras are more technologically advanced than most people presently can make use of.

My main gripe however, and why I subtracted one star, is in an otherwise incredibly engineered camera Canon used the “mini advanced accessory shoe” and NOT the “advanced accessory shoe” (and it took me about 15 minutes to discover there were two different kinds of shoes…who would have even imagined there could be two different kinds of accessory shoes for consumer products!!?).

First this mini shoe is I believe only on a very few products and needless to say it is NOT compatible with anything using the “advanced accessory shoe”. I found this out when I obviously mistakenly ordered the DM-50 microphone which does not fit.

The mini shoe is a stupid idea in the first place, and more importantly Canon has intentionally engineered INcompatibility within their own product lines. Something like microphones, lights, flashes, etc should be cross compatible across all of their product lines and, if you own other Canon products, would, for example, force you to buy almost identical duplicates of accessories because you could not use them on different Canon cameras. Why they did this is something that defies understanding.

Take Home Message: Choose you accessories carefully!

Nifty camera. Lousy battery life.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Just bought this a week ago. Still getting used to the tiny size, and the lack of an optical viewfinder. However, unlikely to get used to the piffling battery life. 1 to 1 1/2 hours! Not even enough for a day trip to Disneyland. What am I supposed to do? Carry a charger everywhere? Or buy a $100 extra battery. Quite a spoiler for what appears to be a competent and friendly camera.

Canon VIXIA HF20
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
First, it’s a Canon, so you know it’s quality, it come with 32GB of internal flash memory, I bought an extra two 16GB SD cards, if you want to record as long as you’re battery is good, flash is the best! I’m very happy with this Camcorder.

Excellent product.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Small and lightweight. Plenty of space with the built in 32GB. The Canon wide angle lens is a good addition especially for indoor use. As with all flash or HD camcorders, make sure you have a good storage and backup scheme for you video since there are no tapes with the original content to archive.

Wish it would have a mode to record 4:3 format, but it always records wide screen.

Excellent HD Cam
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is an incredible video camera. I bought it to create movies for my new baby, but now I use it for everything. The battery life is just OK. Also the user’s guide was created to confuse the hell out of you. It is easier to star using the video camera without the user’s guide. The picture quality is amazing and I like the complementary software to create movies.

Quite happy with it
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Bought this camera a week ago and have had some time to play around with it. I have not yet used the provided editing software as I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. You do need a pretty beefy computer to play/edit these files but they look great! File transfers from this camera are quite fast (much faster than real-time tape). I think I was able to transfer about 30 minutes of footage in about 6 minutes over USB2.0. Comes with composite and component cables so you can watch video straight off the camera to practically any TV (no need to edit of tranfer to computer). You do need to purchase a separate HDMI cable if you want to connect it to an HDMI capable TV but is not necessary if your TV has Component in. (Camera is selectable between SD and HD component out)

I love all the manual functions such as aperture setting, exposure and focus….a must for anyone wanting to ‘compose a shot’. Along with the manual setting though it can be set to fully automatic….point and shoot! I am impressed that the video mode also uses Canons face detection technology so it actually can track a face (or faces) while shooting video to keep the important subject in focus!

Some drawbacks to the camera are that the stock battery last only about 90 minutes which seems short to me. I picked up a spare for about $60 for our upcoming road trip. Another issue for me is that you have to connect the camera to wall power in order to transfer files from the internal memory. I guess it makes sense, you don’t want to lose power while tranferring files, but it seems like a hassle. There is the option to copy files to an SD card which can then be put in your computer….but that is an extra step as well. Not that big of a deal though.

Overall I really like it. It’s small, easy to use with some nice manual features as well. Built in light and flash if you need it and nice looking video for this price range. You can read more here if you’d like:

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For amateur videographers, this is plenty camera.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is my first foray into camcorders. I’ve been waiting at least 10 years for just the right camcorder to come along. This is the first one that had many of the criteria I was looking for: HD, small size, high quality image, OIS, photo taking, built in memory, etc.

I have to say that I’m satisfied with it considering the price you’re paying for such a little marvel. The only things I think that can stand to improve are the sharpness of the photos, the low light performance, the capacity of the 809 battery, a wheel for manual focusing and perhaps a larger touch screen instead of the manual controls. Other than those things I can’t think of anything else that would enhance this little gem.

It works wonderfully with iMovie ’09. Just plug it in and you’re ready to go. No hunting the internet or CDs for drivers.

The PQ of the videos are extremely good in good light, decent with moderate light. I think most people would be very satisfied with it.

No wall charger
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Canon designed this camcorder to be very light and practical, but “forgot” to include the wall charger. You have two options: to either carry with you their “compact power adapter” which is consisted out of 2 parts and you end up with the bunch of unnecessary wires or to spend at least $50 or more on purchasing Canon’s 2590B002 CG-800 Lithium Ion Battery Charger. Other than that, VIXIA HF20 is a great camcorder.

I’m the annoying guy with the camcorder now
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Compact and lightweight.. excellent feature set.. I do not miss the view finder. Once you get used to the controls and follow along in the manual for a few minutes you get the interface. Everything defaults to automatic but you can adjust focus, mic levels, aperture and shutter speed in a couple clicks of the thumbstick. Picture quality is great, of course, even at non HD quality. I didn’t install the bundled software – there is free video editing software from Microsoft called Live Movie Maker that works perfect for PCs and can automatically upload to YouTube. For bigger jobs I got Sony Vegas 9 – I tried them both out and they work fine. I can see battery life being a problem but I haven’t been too far from an outlet for it to totally run out. I did run out of internal memory but syncing to the PC is easy. I love the internal memory and I like not having a hard drive in there. Very happy with the decision to go with the HF20.

seller/shipper and product review
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I can’t say enough about JR’s. I placed this order in the afternoon, it shipped that day, delivering the following day. Great job!! The HF20 is a great camera! It’s easy to use, navigate and the zoom anf picture quality is outstanding. Compared to less expensive video cameras – it’s worth spending a little more for this item.

Love it!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have horses and take a lot of video’s, this is a fantastic camera I highly recomment

Amazing Video!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Video from HF20 is too good. Connected the camera to my 1080p TV, with a $5.00 HDMI cable, I could not believe the video quality.

My grip is about the night shots, captured video is too noisy. The still images are also bad in low light. I know it does auto focus by sensing the reflected beam of IR or something from the subject. But in low light it seems to get lost or takes a long time.

I have still not used the software provided by Canon. Windows Vista does not recognize .mts files. So I got Window-7 RC and it works great, as soon as the camera was connected to PC, Win-7 started copying the .mts and .jpg files to hard drive, then played them.

Great Camera
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The video this camera takes is awsome. The camera is extremely easy to use. The only down side to this camere is the software that is bundled with the camera. Software has no where near the capabilities of the Roxio products for burning DVD’s.

Little thing do matter …
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Just after a great day with your camera, you realize what kind of an hassle is waiting for you in front of your PC, while transfering, editing or viewing your files. That is the end of a perfect day and the start of something else.

What I mean from the previous centence is, in order to get the full satisfaction from a product, everything should have the same quality. The weakest link sets the total strength of the chain and in this case, the weakest link is the human interface.

Simple example, when you connect the camera to the PC, you get this writing on the display “Do not disconnect the USB cable or the power source while the camcorder is connected to a computer. Cannot turn off the camcorder or change the operating mode” Everything is on the screen but how you are going to disconnect the camcorder from the PC. The power cord has 90 degrees bend at the connector side. This makes it awkward to put the camcorder on a flat surface. The AC adapter has no light indicator on it, therefore you can not be sure if it is plugged in or not, yet, the charge indicator led on the camera is located in a cosmetic groove which makes it impossible to check from a distance if the camcorder is charging or not. I have large hands and the camcorder is not designed for me. It is not ergonomic enough to operate the zoom without shaking the view and I am out of hope to gain that experience over time. Taking pictures during shooting video is another drama, the push button is so hard that keeping the picture stedy is another challange.

As for the rest, it is giving you what is promissed on the advertisement. I find it now a little diplomatic, not sincere though. Think of this, you used to go to a certain coffee shop because they were used to deliver a nice cookie with it. You do the same next time, but there is no cookie anymore, just what you have asked is what you get!

What they DON’T tell you
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The camera itself seems to work just fine. I wouldn’t know. I have been unable to upload video onto my PC. What I didn’t know going into my purchase was that the HD video gets rendered in a format that requires specific software to upload it, view it and edit it on a regular pc.

No problem because software comes with the camera to do all this stuff. Right?

Wrong. Pixela, the product shipped with the camera is not compatible with a 64 bit operating system, which I have. now I need to purchase 3rd party video editing software and hope it works.

Editing software that came with my computer does not recognize my camera when I attach it.

I think I would have been better off sticking with a good, non-HD camcorder. I wanted ease of use above HD.

great camera!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a great video camera. It works the best outdoors or inside with good lighting. It works perfectly with macs. The video gets imported then converted into a editable format. The only bad thing is that it does not have firewire, but that is not to bad.

Noise, Noise, Noise
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
So I bought this camera to replace a year old 40g Sony HD hard drive camera. I really wanted removable media and I heard that the Canon was the bomb. I was very disappointed and I ended up returning the camera. The camera felt good in my hands, the size was perfect, but the quality was horrible. Low level light was too noisy. What I ended up doing is walking around the house and the yard holding my old camera and this one side by side. The Canon’s color was a little more vivid, but when the light was low the Canon showed it’s true colors. My year old Sony blew it away. I should put my video on youtube, but that would ruin Canon. Sorry Canon…

Great camera, needs better documentation
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Purchases the Canon Vixia HF20 as a replacement for my still working Sony Hi8. Wanted HD video to display on the HDTV. Camera is easy to use and pretty intuitive. Great size – very portable and comfortable in the hand. Have not used the digital photo option on this camera. So far, pleased with the quality of video and the image stabilization. Very simple to replay video directly from camcorder to HDTV.

Downloading the videos from the camcorder to the computer was less intuitive. The documentation that came with the video editing software didn’t help much. Have not done much with editing videos yet – but it seems the software is acceptable for basic edits (adding background music, text).

I do not own a blu-ray burner or player, so if I want 1080 quality on the playback, burning to DVD is not an option. My only choice is to hook up direct to HDTV. I’m looking into the “WD TV Live” for playback direct from a USB drive. That may be the best option at this time.

Wish I didn’t wait so long to buy it!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars

Why I love it:

- It’s so EASY to use! I used it straight out of the box (after it was charged)and start taking beautiful videos of my baby. Navigating through recorded scenes in the playback mode is very easy and uploading is a synch.

- It’s SO TINY!!! It’s amazing something that tiny and light weight could be so advanced! It bring it everywhere and I use it everyday.

- It’s got AMAZING PICTURE QUALITY, especially inside. I was blown away by how clear the videos were and how vivid the colors were inside my dark house, the videos look better than real life. All the scenes I’ve recorded are smooth too.

Why I don’t like it:

- It makes my wonderful Canon Digital Rebel XTi SLR camera look like a giant prehistoric dinosaur.

I wish I bought it earlier!