Tech Tok - Latest Comments in Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Music — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:19:54 -0000

hey i don' found ant different between HF11and HG11. these two are records at 24 Mbps.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

10032006 — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:42:13 -0000

i leve in Indonesia, whether the product is great already available in indonesia?

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

ijokasu — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:48:41 -0000

i can't read a part of this post

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:43:12 -0000

Yep, I don't think there's an HG11. I got the latest Canon product catalog (for Japan) and there's no mention of it.

The HF11 has a 32GB solid state disk and the HG21, as you know, has a 120GB hard drive. Hard drives will destroy themselves if used in low air pressure environments (above 10,000 feet), but solid state drives have no moving parts so they'll be fine. Also, all hard drives eventually die (the drive in my wife's Mac just died after less than 2 years). A solid state drive will probably last longer. They both can also record to SD cards. The HF11 does not have a viewfinder, but has a camera light. The HG21 has a viewfinder, but no light, although there is an attachment which is probably better than the built in light on the HF11.

Also, here's a review of it: http://av.watch.impress.co.... . It's in Japanese, but it's easy enough to click on the pictures and videos. It seems as though the HF11 and HG21 have the same lens and sensor so the quality should the very similar, if not exactly the same. The English review is here: http://www.camcorderinfo.co... (The US camera is all black while the Japanese one is black and silver), but the Japanese review includes real life examples of pictures and videos.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Reid — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:00:17 -0000

Hm, I'm a bit confused. I thought there was only the HG11 and HG21. How is the HF11 different from the HG11? I see that it also records at 24 Mbps.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:59:12 -0000

OK, so I picked up the HF11 instead of the HG21 (yay credit cards!). The main thing that led me to the flash based one was my fear of the internal hard drive in the HG21 dying and not knowing how the camera would react with a bad hard drive. Would it just warn me and only use the memory card or would I be screwed? Also, if I ever hike Mt Fuji, I'd like to take my camera up there without fear of breaking it. I couldn't tell if the hard drive powered up with the camera or powered up when put in to a mode that requires the hard drive. If I could keep the internal hard drive off and use only memory cards, then I may have gotten it, but they wanted about $1350 for it and that's a lot of money for that much uncertainty. I got the HF11 for about $1000 thanks to it being on sale for $1150 and me paying with my DeoDeo card which removed the tax. They even threw in a free tripod and case! The HG21 has very nice hi-res menus though (totally different than the HF11's).

I haven't had a chance to really play with the HF11 yet since it's been dark outside, but I tested it a little bit inside. I recorded some videos then hooked it up to my PS3 for playback on my TV. This is my first HD camcorder so I don't have much to compare it to, but I thought the video was a little noisy and I noticed that trailing that I've seen mentioned, but it wasn't TOO bad; definitely tolerable. This could have just been the lighting conditions (I only have florescent lights in my apartment) and my inexperience with the camera though. There's definitely a difference between 17Mbps and 24Mbps, but maybe not as big a difference as some people think. I will be shooting primarily in 24Mbps, but I feel bad for my poor computer that's got to do the processing (sucks that I'm the only one in my family that has an HDTV and a blu-ray player...I'm going to be stuck converting all my vids to DVD). I'll be playing with it outside some tomorrow and getting the hang of all the settings (manual is in Japanese so I'm on my own). So far, I'm really liking this camera.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:16:13 -0000

Sorry to double post, but I just noticed a typo that you may want to fix. I think you meant to put "HF11" instead of "HG11" in the title.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Mark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:11:08 -0000

These are currently on sale here in Japan for about $1225 and I'll be picking up an HG21 once I get off work in a couple hours. I'm pretty excited about it as this will be my first really nice camcorder. My previous Panasonic one from about 5 years ago had the firewire port die on it right after the warranty expired and a year after that it stopped ejecting tapes. I've been camera-less since.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Reid — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:03:58 -0000

The linked article from Electronista mentions:

"Canon has quickly followed up on earlier Japanese releases with North American versions of its new VIXIA HD camcorders.
[...]
The new VIXIA models ship in September at prices of $949 for the HG20, $1199 for the HF11, and $1299 for the HG21."

That's all the info I have.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Iain — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:46:17 -0000

I keep looking for info on these two but there is barely anything published. It seems that these cameras are Japanese market only. Any word of a North American product?

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Reid — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:57:08 -0000

Ya, that's a major reason to just get the HG21. I would expect that if you recorded to the SDHC, it would save a lot of battery, since you don't have to spin up the hard drive.

Re: Finally, a good-enough HD camcorder: Canon iVis HG11/HG21

Iain — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:35:05 -0000

Nice. I like how it uses SDHC alongside the 32GB of built in storage.