Just received Canon HF S10

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

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.
 
marques said:
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.
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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.
 
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
 
othersteve i find that incredible if not unbelievable, with cs4 and a slighty better spec notebook i cannot scroll even one frame.
 
marques said:
othersteve i find that incredible if not unbelievable, with cs4 and a slighty better spec notebook i cannot scroll even one frame.
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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) 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
 
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i have no website, is their anywhere i can upload you something and then you can download it from their.
 
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
 
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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
 
marques said:
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
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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
 
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.
 
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.
 
get the shoe adapter here: 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
 
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!!
 
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.
 
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.
 
from experience, hdv compression gives these nasty artifacts in the darks. Also, tape is a PITA to work with compared to the SDcard.
 
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