New Canon HF100 Flash Memory High Def Camcorder released 5-1-08

Some of its USPs (Unique Selling Points) appear to be - quoting Canon's website - that besides normal iinterlaced video, it shoots 24p (progressive) ..to "look like film".. and 30p ..for "sharper looking" video.

Or as Canon put it: "..In addition to 24p Cinema Mode, which allows users to mimic the look of Hollywood-style movies, the VIXIA HF10 Dual Flash Memory and HF100 Flash Memory camcorders offer a new feature called 30p Progressive Mode. Canon's 30p Progressive Mode, once exclusive to pro-level camcorders, delivers clarity for fast action events, such as sports or news, and is the perfect frame rate for clips intended to be posted on the Web.."

But iMovie can't - presently - handle progressive video; it plays it back at double speed if it's 30p, and stumbles over it at 24p ..so you won't be able to use those frame rates if you're editing in iMovie. (..Not that they do anything special ..it's more of a marketing ploy, than anything else, to say that their camera shoots at those rates.)

Note that it uses AVCHD compression, which means that the material has to be uncompressed during import into iMovie. Your equipment "..I-mac 24" 2.8ghs intel core 2 duo, 4gb sdram, 1tb hard drive.." will be fast enough to do this in real time, but slower Macs wouldn't be able to (..my Intel Mac mini, for instance, takes 4x real time to import AVCHD..!)

The camera's price is very good for a "full 1920x1080" hi-def camcorder ..but those SDHC memory cards are very expensive for the amount of movie they hold ..and video expands enormously when imported from the AVCHD format, too, so it's good that you've got a terabyte of hard disc space to hold it all.

It's a lightweight camera - judging by the weight of other "no-moving-parts" memory chip camcorders, which is good in many ways, but that means, too, that it'll wobble in your hand - which isn't good for telephoto shots with the 12x optical zoom ..or the 200x digital zoom (..which will be next to useless, I'm afraid..)

So, (a) it's cheap for what it offers, (b) but memory cards are expensive, (c) it's nice and lightweight, (d) but that can work against it at full zoom, (e) its progressive frame rates will be unusable with iMovie, though its interlaced shooting will be OK, (f) its Canon optics should be very good, but (g) its single CMOS sensor may give rather grainy results indoors. Oh, and (h) you may want to buy a screw-on wide-angle adaptor for shooting indoors anyway.

On the whole ..as you have the right Mac for it.. go for it!

Be very careful and better wait until you get some clear indication that the camera is in fact compatible with iMovie. Apple support for AVCHD is weak and very capricious. Recently released Panasonic HDC-SD9 which has very similar specs to Canon HF100 is completely incompatible in all modes with all Apple video software (browse for numerous threads) and the only current solution is conversion with VoltaicHD.
I simply wonder what kind of standard AVCHD is if there are so many compatibility problems.

I recently purchased this camera and have found it to be fairly easy to use. I was able to import clips from the camera into iMovie'08 both from the camera and from USB using a SDHC USB fob. The limited amount of video I've shot has been using the 24fps "movie" mode. I've been able to edit it in iMovie with no problem but I haven't tried creating a DVD yet.

I'm also trying to learn FCE so I've used that as well for editing, but am still working on getting the export quality to come out right.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what quality I should use on the camera? I know that the fps can be a problem, I'm just not sure what makes the most sense to use. I want a nice looking picture on the TV screen - HD 720p (for now).

As a follow-up to my last post...I played around with this last night. The video I shot looks pretty good on an NTSC television, however when played on my HD TV's, it is squashed looking. I shot some subsequent video at 60i using Cinemode and had better success with the DVD creation. I imported the clip into iMovie'08 and then imported into FCE4. I set the sequence to be 1080i 60 and exported quicktime movie and created the DVD through iDVD'08. It played full screen on my HD TV's and looked much better. I'll be playing with that a little more in the next few days.

"But iMovie can't - presently - handle progressive video; it plays it back at double speed if it's 30p, and stumbles over it at 24p ..so you won't be able to use those frame rates if you're editing in iMovie."

Simply not true. It handles 720p30 and 1080i60 fine. And, Canon's 24p is really input and edited as 60i.

Although I don't have a progressive HD camera, I've simulated progressive video at various frame rates and successfully imported it to im08 via 'import movies' rather than 'import from camera', I clearly can't say for sure but I don't see why im08 shouldn't import progressive from a camera in the same way..