Consumer Reports tests consumer camcorders every year. They accept no advertising, making them more unbiased than typical DV type magazine reviews.
I checked their ratings on the HV30 and HF10 (done last year). Only two HD camcorders had a picture quality judged as "excellent"- the HV30 and Sony HD-SR12. The HF10 was very good, but not as good as the HV30. Also, image stabilization in the HV30 was much better than the HF10.
not according to the testing that camcorderinfo did... the hf11/hg series has significantly higher measured resolution, and a better low light rating as well.
wrt the time it takes to render from avchd to an intermediate codec, the canopus hq transcoder can do simultaneous encodings for every core in the cpu, which even with a core2duo, is quicker than real time capture from tape.
