Just received Canon HF S10

[marques]

Yes, just got the newish canon hf s10.

and I need some advice from guys more experienced than myself. (probably everyone)

1 Firstly, i never used the avchd format, which framerate is better 60i or 30p. My distribution is only about 20 to 30 people so i have no idea what kind of tv set they have and i doubt they do.:beer:

2 i edit with cs4 and will be mixing with sd footage as well. what preset should i choose for the the project. ae and premiere.

3 the camera has a mini advanced shoe. a mini advanced pain in the arse:crybaby: if you ask me. how do i attach my microphones to this thing.

4 i am not going to stick a mattebox on this little thing, so how do i use say a nd filter with a tele adapter.

5 how do i get the damn box open. :Drogar-Smoke(DBG):

[Green Hornet]

The mini shoe requires a special mic for mounting, or a special adapter.
You will have to use an adapter for xlr mics.

I would only shoot in progressive formats, and would use 24p
It puts the footage in an interlace container, so you have to do a pulldown to get the frames as frames.

I would use Cineform to do the pulldown and then convert to 720p as it is easier to edit.
If you have a super fast computer you can edit raw AVCHD, but you will need something with either 3 gig core 2 duo with dedicated graphics, or quad core.

If editing 720p, you can either edit with the sony presets, or do a custom preset from desktop editing mode.

[marques]

thanks for the response.

does anyone know of any mounting shoe adapters that would be good and an xlr adapter.

my prefered format would be 30p ntsc , as the final output would probably be blueray or sd dvd.

my notebook is a 2.4 dual core. what do you think

[dust'n the callipygous]

get the shoe adapter here: http://www.adorama.com/VDCMSFLAT.html
juicedlink makes a really good xlr adapter with pre-amps and phantom power.

if you shoot 24p or 30p it's still going to be in a 60i wrapper. i prefer the look of 24p, but that's just preference. if you're exporting to DVD, just skip the pulldown removal, then your 24p or 30p footage will import the same into a 30 frame timeline.

[mgalvan]

May I ask where you bought it from?

I've been waiting to purchase this camcorder :)

[Isaac_Brody]

Forget the mic, go shoot some footage and post on vimeo! We're itching to see some 24P no gain footage.

[ecking]

get the shoe adapter here: http://www.adorama.com/VDCMSFLAT.html

Holy shit, thank you so much for posting that! I needed something like this and didn't think anyone made one!

[ecking]

marques, please post some real pics of what the unit looks like in real life. I won an hf100 from my work but haven't received it yet, I'm thinking of not even opening the box, selling it and getting the hf s100. Also please please post some 0db vimeo footage!

[ChipG]

Sweet, didn't think they were out yet. Can you post some outdoor footage and low light footage? I'm thinking about buying a couple of these little camera's for an upcoming project to use as small b & c cameras. I was just pricing polarizers and uv haze filters for them yesterday. If you sell it to get the 100 please PM me the price you want for it.

Thanks!

[ChipG]

Yep, just found one on eBay (grey market camera) for $1399.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-CANON-iVIS-VIXIA-LEGRIA-HF-S10-Dual-Flash-DV-NTSC_W0QQitemZ140303521135QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCamco rders_Professional_Video_Cameras?hash=item14030352 1135&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C 240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

Hope the mods don't care about me posting this link, it is a buy it now and not my item.

I was hoping for a street price of around $1k

[ChipG]

Marques, what kind of battery record time are you getting from that camera?

Thanks again man!

[ecking]

If you sell it to get the 100 please PM me the price you want for it.

Are you talking to me? I thought you said you want an hfs10? Why would you want to buy an hf100?

[ChipG]

yea, sorry bro. You had hfs100 in two places, I gues you meant sell the 100 to get the 10. I do want the hfs10.

[marques]

firstly, where did i buy it. I live in japan and i got it from an internet company via
Kakaku.com. I paid 106 000 yen including next day delivery.
the thing is, the price is falling about 1000 yen every fifth day. so if you wait a month you should get a really cheap camera

I read somewhere that if you record 30p you dont have to do any strange unwrapping thingy. anymore in depth insight on this topic

footage could come in a couple of days, going to buy some filters before i turn it on (i once had a scratched lens)but i played with it in the store and its incredible. clean and good shallow depth of field, though a little over saturated.

[marques]

sorry, just searching and searching and gave up. want to use one of the avchd presets in premiere cs4 for 30p, but there are many including anamorphic whatever that means, which preset is the most suitable

[marques]

after playing with it (the camera) today, this camera really sucks in poor lighting. my first consumer camera and i was shocked.

[ChipG]

how is it outside in the sun?

[Green Hornet]

after playing with it (the camera) today, this camera really sucks in poor lighting. my first consumer camera and i was shocked.

I disagree. The camera does well for what it is.
I have shot side by side with the HMC150, and they shoot about the same with no gain. Where the HMC150 does better is with color saturation and you can pump up the gain without adding noise.

[Green Hornet]

Marques, what kind of battery record time are you getting from that camera?

Thanks again man!

From what I remember, you get about 90 minutes of shooting on the small battery, and about 2.5 hours when using the large battery (819 battery)

[Green Hornet]

how is it outside in the sun?

It is great in the sun, but kind of grainy in complex scenes.
IT is not smooth like a panasonic. Don't get me wrong, it's sharp but not smooth.

Kind of the opposite of the panasonics. They are smooth, but lacking in detail.
THe Hf s100 is detailed but not smooth.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Yep, just found one on eBay (grey market camera) for $1399.

....
I was hoping for a street price of around $1k

why would you buy that on ebay when you can wait a couple of weeks and get a non gray market one from BH for $100 less. Or and HF S100 for $200 less?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=search&A=search&Q=&sb=bs%2Cupper%28ds%29&sq=asc&sortDrop=Brand%3A+A+to+Z&ac=&bsi=&bhs=t&shs=&ci=1871&at=Brand_Canon&at=Camcorder+Type_High+Definition&basicSubmit=Submit

[marques]

wow just did my first session and this thing really gives beautiful pictures. really impressed but i then imported it into premiere cs4 and hit a dead end. even in draft mode it just doesn't play. so right now i have a lot of unusable beautiful footage.

[Green Hornet]

wow just did my first session and this thing really gives beautiful pictures. really impressed but i then imported it into premiere cs4 and hit a dead end. even in draft mode it just doesn't play. so right now i have a lot of unusable beautiful footage.

That is when you get a faster computer, or transcode to something else like cineform.

You will need at least a 2.5 core 2 duo (not dual core) and dedicated graphics card with minimum 512 ram. Nvidia cuda graphics cards will speed up the process a bit as well. That is the minimum computer to use CS4 and native AVCHD.

Transcoding to cineform will get it playable, but at less than full rate, untill cineform has full support of CS4 in it's next release.

[marques]

I imported it into after effects and used the lowest resolution and it renders out well. so actually after effects seems a usable alternative. but somewhat a much, much slower prossess to what i am used to.

just checked my couple of year old notebook. core 2 duo 2.4, 64 bit, 4gb ram, and 256 nvidia card, but nothing in premiere. I am thinking either solid state drive or external raid 0 or both. do you think it will make any difference.

[OSV]

get the shoe adapter here: http://www.adorama.com/VDCMSFLAT.html
juicedlink makes a really good xlr adapter with pre-amps and phantom power.


if you are handy, you can build an adapter mount for half that cost, or less, with a carriage bolt from the local hardware store... it slides right into the canon mount, here is how i did it: Vive Surround Sound Microphone mount on Canon Vixia (http://www.codectest.com/productreviews/vive-surround-sound-microphone-review.html)

i wanted that juicedlink unit, but i couldn't afford it, so i hacked the canon ma100 xlr adapter onto the hf11, similar to what is in the pic... you have to open up the ma100 and solder a ground wire out to the power supply to activate it, but the sound quality is the same as it is on your xl1s/xl2/whatever... the ma100/ma200 are quality pieces.

shoot the footage at the same frame rate that you shot the sd footage at, don't try mixing framerates on the editing timeline.

[OSV]

I imported it into after effects and used the lowest resolution and it renders out well. so actually after effects seems a usable alternative. but somewhat a much, much slower prossess to what i am used to.

just checked my couple of year old notebook. core 2 duo 2.4, 64 bit, 4gb ram, and 256 nvidia card, but nothing in premiere. I am thinking either solid state drive or external raid 0 or both. do you think it will make any difference.

core2duo is not enough horsepower for editing raw avchd, unless you use nero, or something similar, with video-accelerated capability... very few editors do that... the nero software package includes the showtime player, which will allow you to preview your avchd footage at close to the same framerate it was shot at... the coreavc pro codec($15) with the media player classic does pretty well also.

avchd is all about cpu power for decoding, and since it has roughly the same bitrate as dv, solid state or raid won't help much.

i transcode 24Mbps avchd into the canopus hd codec, it works pretty well with my core2duo, in sony vegas pro.

[othersteve]

Just a quick note. I edit in Sony Vegas Pro 8.1 with my Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz 64-bit laptop and I have absolutely no problems whatsoever. It's easy, just a bit slow on render perhaps (about 5-6 minutes to render each minute of 24Mbps Canon AVCHD video), but absolutely manageable and nowhere near impossible. Moving from Vegas 8.0c to 8.1 with 64-bit literally halved my render time.

It's the program selection that makes all the difference here. CS4 apparently cannot handle it, nor can most any other NLE. Vegas 8.1 just can.

Oh, by the way, I have no dedicated video either, and run only on an X3100.

Steve

[marques]

othersteve i find that incredible if not unbelievable, with cs4 and a slighty better spec notebook i cannot scroll even one frame.

[othersteve]

othersteve i find that incredible if not unbelievable, with cs4 and a slighty better spec notebook i cannot scroll even one frame.
Marques,

You and me both, brother. :) I really don't know what it is about it, but I just don't find AVCHD all that intimidating with Vegas Pro 8.1. I HIGHLY suggest you consider it if you want to streamline your workflow without having to shell out for a more powerful PC. Others have reported similar render times so I know it isn't just my machine.

BTW, though it really doesn't matter, I also run Windows 7 64-bit beta. That's not really a big deal though.

I will say to render coming from some other video formats (WMV, H.264 MOV) with Vegas, I do transcode first quickly to high-bitrate MJPEG (as it's just what I had handy which both programs happened to support). But apart from that Vegas has been a godsend.

In case you're curious, I run a new independent gaming site (DigitalChumps.com (http://www.digitalchumps.com)) and we will be covering E3 this year in all HD (it'll be the first year we've done HD coverage... though we've been at the show for 8 years under our old site name, Gamerz-Edge, which no longer exists). I plan to have an HF-S10 in hand, pending positive press about the camera, with this laptop, and we will be bringing two other pro HD cams as well. All video on our site will be streaming H.264 HD, and free. I think we're the only site that is doing this. What I'm getting at is that portability, quality, and render times are paramount for my workflow. But I still think the HF-S10 is what I will be doing, mostly thanks to the tapeless nature of its design and the fact that it's future-proof. And I'll be using Vegas for the editing.

Edit: I'll tell you what. It'd be helpful for me to get some lengthier 30p 24Mbps Canon HF-S10 footage to test render/edit times with directly in Vegas. If you'd like to provide a downloadable 30p MTS file with plenty of motion that's, say, a minute long, it'd be REALLY helpful. I could test render it for you in Vegas and report back with render times and all that jazz for both of our benefit. :)

Steve

[marques]

i have no website, is their anywhere i can upload you something and then you can download it from their.

[othersteve]

Marques,

Please check your private messages.

Just an update for everyone else as well... in my relative inexperience with video editing (sort of anyway), I have noticed that 32-bit floating point rendering is necessary to preserve X.V. Color, so if you count that in, render times double. But I'm not sure how many of you are messing around with that anyway. I think I will forego it for our E3 coverage this year as it just takes too long.

With lots of motion, regular transitions, an image watermark over the entire video, and ProType Titler over the first ten seconds, I have simulated a render of around 5m38s per minute of video when rendering to AVCHD 2Mbps 1280x720, 8-bit (for web video specifically). Vegas Pro 8.1, of course. This will probably change once I get a single file to work with, however. But needless to say, it's a good number!

I have a question for anyone in the know as well. I know Canon wraps their 30p in a 60i package. What specifically should I set the project to in order to preserve the acuity of the original Canon 30p footage when rendering to 30p H.264?

Thanks,

Steve

[marques]

othersteve, went to the admin page and wasn't able to log in. by the way the stuff on my pc is 60i, I will shoot 30p in the next few days though. i thought the 60i would handle the motion and indoor light much better.

can you tell me more about the x.v. color, do you get more information and can you color grade using the same effects like rgb curves etc. in addition in after effects their is 32 bit color but in premiere it just states maximum color bit. Is that to 32

[othersteve]

othersteve, went to the admin page and wasn't able to log in. by the way the stuff on my pc is 60i, I will shoot 30p in the next few days though. i thought the 60i would handle the motion and indoor light much better.

can you tell me more about the x.v. color, do you get more information and can you color grade using the same effects like rgb curves etc. in addition in after effects their is 32 bit color but in premiere it just states maximum color bit. Is that to 32
Yeah; the way I understand it, 32-bit floating point is pretty much the same deal. X.V. Color records more color depth and displays better on some devices (newer televisions, computer screens, etc.).

As for the 60i and low light, it's just the opposite from what I understand. 30p means more light is allowed to enter in. I'd try shooting in 30p low light and see how that turns out; reportedly, it isn't all that bad.

Finally, about the FTP login info I sent you... you can't just visit the page; you have to have an FTP client and login with it. Are you not familiar with how that works? If not, I'm not really sure where to send you... though I'd like to be able to try out some footage rendering for both yours and my sake.

Steve

[marques]

steve

thanks for the info, I am shooting some stuff tonight. Ill use the uv color depth and 30p as advised. although i read the complete opposite about 60i and 30p. i read the interlaced stuff gives better motion in low light. but what you say regarding the shutter makes a lot of sense. the last shoot was a karate class and i was worried primarily about the motion.

yes a computer grad. but i have absolutely no idea, it was a long long time ago. I am sure a lot of people will have some footage soon.

[strancali]

I would love to see some footage once you guys get it sorted out. I am debating between the HDV and AVCHD at the moment.

[marques]

get the shoe adapter here: http://www.adorama.com/VDCMSFLAT.html (http://www.adorama.com/VDCMSFLAT.html)
juicedlink makes a really good xlr adapter with pre-amps and phantom power"

thanks man i just received the adaptor. great quality i can recommend it to everyone.
just read that beachtek are making a new xlr adaptor pacifically for this model

[Chamber005]

I wonder how much of a sleeper this cam might be...

http://www.vimeo.com/4071093

I'm no techie, but besides the jitteriness in the pans, this camera looks pretty dang good.

Can anyone here decipher the specs for me? Explain why this camera is a lesser camera than its prosumer brethern? (Just talking picture here. Sound, inputs, ergonomics, etc. notwithstanding).


THANKS!!

[astigmatic]

it's has great picture quality, compared to the xh-a1, it's probably better, especially because it's not lousey hdv. However, the low light sucks when compared to the A1, which for some is a huge negative.

[Ian-T]

What's so lousy about HDV? We are not talking about 1st generation HDV here (JVC) that gave the codec a bad name. There is absolutely nothing wrong with HDV....especially the way Canon implements it. If that cam's picture turns out tobe nicer or sharper than the A1 it wouldn't be because of the codec used. It does have a much higher pixel count....which also means that the low light would not be as good as the A1.

[astigmatic]

from experience, hdv compression gives these nasty artifacts in the darks. Also, tape is a PITA to work with compared to the SDcard.

[ddp]

What's so lousy about HDV? We are not talking about 1st generation HDV here (JVC) that gave the codec a bad name. There is absolutely nothing wrong with HDV....especially the way Canon implements it. If that cam's picture turns out tobe nicer or sharper than the A1 it wouldn't be because of the codec used. It does have a much higher pixel count....which also means that the low light would not be as good as the A1.



I'm totally with you on the HDV subject. I've had absolutely no problems with it whatsoever. I hear so many people slammin' on it I wonder if they've actually worked with it or just spewing someones opinion they read.
Not that I'm a canon fan boy, I've got Panasonics too and I know this is a Pansonic flavoured site but come on get over the HDV thing.........Maybe the reason some peoples footage looks so bad has nothing to do with the camera..............:Drogar-Dum(DBG):

[mgalvan]

seriously ... hdv is perfectly usable as a format.

Canon's implementation (especially its progressive modes) is the best I've seen.

[Conchchowder]

I'm really surprised that nobody has mentioned Voltaichd here as a solution to AVCHD editing woes. http://www.shedworx.com/voltaichd