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| Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer | 
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| Brand: Canon
Category: Photography
List Price: $1,299.99
Buy New: $649.88
You Save: $650.11 (50%)
New (14) Used (1)
Avg. Customer Rating:  140 reviews
Sales Rank: 551
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Optical Zoom: 10
Display Size: 2.7
Maximum Focal Length: 61
Minimum Focal Length: 6.1
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 3.2 x 3 x 5.1
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: 2183B001AA
Model: 2183B001AA
UPC: 013803087079
EAN: 0013803087079
ASIN: B000U8HBRW
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent Camera December 23, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I purchased this camera for myself prior to a trip to Europe, and, although my review is based on preliminary observations, I have to say, I am really impressed. The camera is easy to operate - it takes the hard drive about 3-10 seconds to warm up. The flipout LCD's menu is intuitive, and the picture is *fantastic*. I was considering the Sony hard drive based camera, but I'm really glad I chose this one and saved a considerable amount of money.
 HG10 after a week...a month later December 22, 2007
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I got my Canon HG10. Harddrive AVCHD. It is a nice unit. Easier to use than my Old Sony minidv ergonomically, esp the zoom...really nicely calibrated for touch. Also, Canon does not use touch screen. Has a jog wheel which is just OK..kinda small. Hard drive is totally silent...no tape mechanism noise thru the microphone. Kinda wide/chunky body due to the hard drive.
Likes:
Hard drive classics. No rewind, fast forward, write-over for deletes.
Instant access via thumbnails, etc.
Move files straight to PC as files using the included software....(no sequential real-time transfer like tape)
Good quality HD and SD DVDs
Transfer is via USB...firewire not required.
Seems to be of nice build quality compared to HV20
Dislikes:
No "natural" tape archival, of course, But easy to archive to a DVD
It makes you use the AC adapter to transfer...it is afraid of power loss and harddrive corruption according to Instructions.
Files are huge
Mini SD and Mini HDMI are extra costs since most don't have either
You cannot just access the files on the Hard drive. You must use the included transfer. I would have thought you could see the files on the HDrive and have it treated like a USB drive. It even warns you never to do this.
Low light video is grainy.
The thing came with ULead DVD Factory SE by Corel. Basic. It has utilities to backup Camcorder to PC, Author, or move files back to camcorder.
I was able to move files to PC, Author and burn a DVD in widescreen Standard Def. It allowed me to slice and dice clips, create menu and chapters...the basic stuff....real simple. My DVD output Quality was very high for SD...higher than what I get from Sony minidv digital camcorder (non-HD). The audio was Dolby Digital,but only 2.1 on my burned DVD. Not 5.1. Will have to look into that..not that it matters since I don't have 6 microphones for surround sound. I use a Quad Core Processor, 3gb of ram...runs OK.
It also came with a special WinDVD Intervideo Player SE to play AVCHD files in HD...so these files from the Camcorder are playable in HD on the PC. Those files look better on my HDTV than on my PC. The PC is a little shakey...could be my video card...which is a Nvidia 7350.
The files are .M2TS files.
Strangely, Windows Media says it cannot play. But if you say "Try", it does play the AVCHD file video...not audio. I bet they will fix that. Until they do, we won't be sharing HD files with buddies!
I do not have Blu Ray or HD DVD player, so I did not attempt to author a disk of that format. But it's good to know I can work with AVCHD files and not the challenge they were a year ago. I suppose Pinnacle, SonyVegas, and Adobe software will advance this rapidly.
I tried 24p and 60i. The pans using 24p are jittery, as some report. They are bad enough that I would not use.
Update....a month later:
Still putting it thru paces. HG10 itself is great, other than low light performance. You will need an upgraded battery. Got my Mini HDMI cable from Amazon for about $18. It really helped. My HD picture is amazing. I was sitting on the couch one evening reading the HG10 instructions with the camera in hand. I had a PBS program on the HDTV with the Blue Angels....I aimed the HG10 at the TV and recorded, not expecting much. When I played it back into the TV, the playback on the HG10 was amazing..almost as good as original.
My main concern with HG10, was not the camera...but the AVCHD files. The Ulead basic that came with it was OK. I tried Sony Vegas with some success, but when Corel had Ulead Video Studio 11 Plus for $59, I ordered. It works fine. Captures from camera, easy editing...lots of output features. (you do need to download a "powerpack" for AVCHD).
I found a 2Gb mini SD for $20 shipped. Works fine, and the HG10 takes really good photos for a camcorder. It does make you flip a switch to go between video and photos.
So, far this camera is a keeper.
Good Camera, Hard Drive Initially Convenient December 22, 2007
35 out of 37 found this review helpful
I'll be blunt, this is a long review, cause that's the type of review I would like to read myself, just a simple THIS CAMERA IS GREAT A+++ doesn't tell me much... Anyways, I chose this camera over the cheaper HV20 because it looked prettier, and because it had better imagery and manual controls over sony's sr5 at the same price. I also like the large lens, just simple math can tell you a larger lens allows more light to enter.
For those of you pitting this HG-10 vs. SR5, the adv is many...:
1) mic in (essential for good mics out there, accessory shoe is gimmick really, only good for mounting the mic
2) Manual controls = awesome interview, high shutter slow-motion, special effects footage
3) viewfinder (though i think it's a pretty bad one)
4) OPTICAL image stabilization
5) Head-phone out which is really essential for monitoring your audio during shooting
5) 2.1 megapixel effective vs. 1.4 MP sensor, don't even talk about the JVC or Panasonic 3 CCD sensors with about 0.5 MP each, and pixel-shifting.
For those of you deciding between HG-10 vs. HV-20:
1) It looks much less el cheapo at the same price, which is oddly very important to me
2) HARD DRIVE! I shot an hour of interviews and I still have about 5 hours left, without worrying about changing tapes, NICE!
3) Handling is awesome, hands and fingers go where they should go and zoom rocker is good for doing fixed zooms
4) Shorter; scroll wheel is good concept
5) ingesting an hour of raw footage to external hard drive took *correction ~5 minutes and took up 4.3 gb, NICE, try doing that with miniDV
Common Issues/FAQ:
1) Isn't MiniDV recording easier to archive?
Answer: I'm going to take someone's excellent argument for this, look at it this way, my 1 hour of footage takes up 4.3 GB of hard drive space in raw AVCHD format, let's say I have a 500 GB external that I got for $80, that external can then hold ideally 116 hours of video. So at the going price of $3 per miniDV tape and an hour per tape, you would be looking at ~$350 to match what the $80 External can do, and... hard drive space is only going to get cheaper. Plus the advantages of random access to 116 hours of high def video is clear vs. who in their right minds will look through 116 miniDV tapes, digital camera vs. film camera argument anyone?
2) AVCHD is too compressed to be good quality = not so. I think this footage is comparable to the Panasonic HVX200 and that's record to DVCPRO, not in low light though, but in adequate lighting it's pretty damn good.
3) I'm going to run out of footage space because I can't get another hard drive!
Answer: Well this is like the chicken and egg argument, sure you may only have 6 hours of footage at highest quality mode and "only" 10 hours the next step down, but you're still ultimately limited by the 1 hour battery life, so you're well on your way home to recharge and to backup your footage by the time you hit that one hour mark. Those on vacation with this camera should already know its limitations and bring along a laptop, copying and pasting the raw AVCHD files is lightening fast.
4) Canon Camcorders Suck! : Herm, don't quite know what to say here, get a Sony then and all the power to ya
Pros from use:
1) automated lens cover is handy, especially when you playback video, at least it reduces my paranoia a tad bit: it automatically closes.
2) Hard Drive Capacity: 6 hours at highest quality is a dream, 15 hours at lowest is also awesome, I may never have to buy media for this camcorder (yeah i know, technically I can't haha), or log and capture from miniDV... ugh
3) I may be repeating myself, but this camcorder is beautiful, the gray areas are kind of a dirty gradient of colors that looks like a slab of marble, and the mode toggle has concentric aluminum ridges, the zoom toggle is beautiful and the dimensions are trim.
4) Batteries are the same as many other canon camcorders, so after market ones are very inexpensive
5) After market mics are really inexpensive also, I saw an Audio Technica stereo one going for $35
6) Monitoring audio with the headphone out is VERY useful in any situation, especially interviews or anything shot outdoors
7) I must say, low light performance is only good if you use a tripod and under controlled lighting conditions. Want to know how good? For an interview, I had a single 60W table lamp shining on my subject and I was zoomed in with an aperture of f2.8, very sharp image and background is appropriately blurred, who needs lens adapters! (http://thaid.bol.ucla.edu/Dad.png or http://thaid.bol.ucla.edu/Neighbor.png - I was going for that Band of Brothers effect).
8) LCD is pretty sharp, so focusing is easy, color accuracy could be improved though
9) Backup Ingesting is fast!
10) Each start/stop scene automatically becomes its own file, vs. manually logging a scene to capture it with miniDV
Cons off the top of my head:
1) camera should be able to also record pictures on the hard drive, instead of just the miniSD (which I DON'T have!)
2) There should be more mac software bundled in than just the image downloading one. HOWEVER, on macs and possibly pcs, you can backup and ingest the footage by copying and pasting the entire content of the camera hard drive over to your computer. Then open the directory using Final Cut Express 4 or Final Cut Pro 6.0.1+ to let it encode to something editable. Updating this backup is simple, just overwrite everything... or if you want to make things faster, overwrite everything except the AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM folder. Then copy over the new STREAM files while leaving your old ones intact. At 1 Gig/min. though, it may just be simpler to overwrite everything. This hard drive feature kind of reminds me of my digital camera and its 2 GB SD card, I've learned not to delete any pictures from the card, just to take what I need from it when I need it. It's been a year and it's still not full, I suspect the hard drive on this camcorder would work similarly.
3) What they say is true, 24P is not pretty, though yes it allows for more light
4) Doesn't have analog pass-through so you can't hook up a vcr through this camcorder and record the footage to your computer, I've done this before so I kind of miss it.
5) AVCHD is a pain to encode to something useful vs. miniDV, though miniDV is a pain to import. One thing to note is that Final Cut Express lags with 1080 Apple Intermediate Codec or DVCPRO footage, but Final Cut Pro handles it very quickly (on a macbook with core duo 2.0ghz). DVCPRO is awesome but then you'd have to buy something like the HVX200.
6) No firewire = no live-capture and monitoring with your laptop or desktop, I really do wish they could've included firewire.
7) They might as well have left out the viewfinder, its lower res than the lcd panel and doesn't swivel up, not to mention you can't control anything when the lcd panel is closed
8) Ports are fragile
9) Top mounted microphones are the worst idea since the invasion of Iraq, good thing alternative mics are affordable
10) Everything should have been controlled by the scroll wheel, but instead its use is limited and the directional pad takes over too often
11) Cat-eye record button... what? why? I'm fine with a regular old round red record button.
12) USB port inside the LCD cavity, why oh why am I exposing my lcd panel to damage during the lengthy ingesting process?
13) Manual focus sucks on camera since you'll be making a loud scrolling sound, but oddly silent and intuitive with the remote
14) Ahh, 1080i video takes up too much space, my laptop's lcd can't even display that many pixels, give me the option to record in 720p or standard definition please!
*Update: If you use the free Mpeg Streamclip, and encode using Apples Intermediate Codec or whatever, you can reencode it to 720p resolution, and the resulting footage looks identical to the original and it would take up about 1/4th the space: down-resed image: [...]
*New
15) In real world conditions, low-light performance is pretty bad. If you're going handheld through a neighborhood at night lit only by christmas lights and various other christmas decorations, the footage is nauseating to watch. There'll be severe ghosting, out of focus picture, bobbing up and down from walking. I see Canon still has problems with low light situations, in moments like these I'd rather have the Sony infrared option and see black/white picture rather than a color picture with little detail. The pen light only works up to 2 feet, good for interviewing on the spot, but really bad for anything else.
I'll write more when I spend more time with it, but here's some pics to tide you over (not original resolution):
[...]
I love hg10, have problems with video editing December 20, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought hg10 2 weeks ago. Before buying I spent a week reading different reviews on all sites I can find. Some reviewers' complained about poor quality with "Progressive 24" mode, but DVInfo site dismissed that accusation and even provided real video samples in all modes. I compared footage of hv20 and hg10 and did not find significant difference. Yes, if you'd move camera very quickly image would be poor, but same apply to hv20 and any other consumer camcorder.
Anyway, I weighted all "pros" and "cons" and bought it.
My main "feature request" for camcorder was:
- Ability to shot fast moving kinds in low light (indoors)
- High definition, best possible quality
- Stable picture
- Easy to copy to PC and edit
- Good battery life
Low light performance is good, much better than my older SD-Sony. Camera does not have special "night" mode as Sony does, but it makes decent picture in low light and Sony's night mode was useless for me anyway because people looked horrible in that mode. Sunlight provides best results as usual.
Optical image stabilization works very nice, much better than digital stabilization on my older Sony. I'm moving camera slowly and image it just amazing, especially in 60i mode.
I just love to have tape less hard drive camcorder, no rewind-search etc. It is much easier to delete a clip in the middle of other clips, which wasn't possible with tape at all. No need to "capture" video in some special video editor - just attach USB cable and copy to PC. No need to wait an hour for "capture". I like to be able just store my raw files and I like the fact it is small files, "clips". With tape I was have to either somehow archive one huge 13 GB AVI file or just delete uncompressed raw video.
Video quality playback is pretty impressive on my 50" plasma TV, especially when I connected camcorder via mini-HDMI-to-HDMI cable. Love little remote control.
Battery life is not so impressive, as you might expect from any bundled battery. I need to buy spare.
Audio is great indoors, but I heard loud wind noise outdoors. Again, I'd have to buy external mike.
Bundled software has ability to create standard DVD (plays everywere) or AVCHD DVD disks (much faster creation, HD). Then I tried to play avchd disk in blue-ray player - it works! AVCHD disk looks just as same .m2ts files been copied to avchd folder on DVD. Files just couple kb bigger for some reason. Now I need to buy blue-ray player :)
The biggest problem with bundled Corel soft: it freezes for 2-3 seconds in between clips basically making DVD/AVCHD-DVD viewing very unpleasant.
Oh, Now I need to buy AVCHD video editing software :) and probably Quad-Q6600 based machine...
Summary: hg10 deliver amazing, stable and vivid picture, it is tape less camcorder with USB-plug-and-copy easiness. I would buy it again.
Be ready to spent time with lousy bundled software and upgrade your PC. AVCHD is new format: vista can not play it; most editors either do not support it at all or have pretty buggy support. For example, trial Ulead VS 11.0 does not support .m2ts and does not allow patching it.
It's pretty nice to have a hard drive December 19, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I did a lot of research before buying this and I would probably buy it again. I don't know what else I would buy.
I bought this so my in-laws could "be there" during the first few days of my firstborn's life.
The set-up was simple. I haven't transferred any video from it to my computer yet, but I took it to work and let our IT guys play with it and they transferred very easily, the video looked superb, great color, and that was just on auto settings inside an office.
So far it's been great. I haven't really had a chance to use it much yet, but what I have, it's very simple and seems to be of good quality. I think the nicest thing to have on it is the hard drive. I never have to worry about tapes, discs or anything like that or how much time or space the video is going to take up even. If I don't want the video there anymore, I delete it.
I think the only complaint I would have is that it doesn't have a firewire plug-in. That would make the transferring oh so much faster than USB2.
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