Canon HG10

I bought the new Canon HG10 HDV camcorder to bring along on my trip to Reno. The camera is basically the twin brother of the raved-about Canon HV20 but instead of using MiniDV tapes, it has a built-in 40GB hard drive. Capable of 1440x1080i AVCHD encoded video, this camera really packs quite a punch for it's small, 5" x 3" x 3" size. The images, as I've seen so far are beautiful, and it is quite a feature-rich camera.

The only downside that I've experienced so far is that the video files it captures are .mts files. These are hi-def 1080i video files encoded with AC3, I believe. It's basically a variation of the mpeg2 encoder. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, however, a slight complication was overlooked.

I bought this camera thinking it would be really easy to film, download, and edit my vacation footage up here in the Sierra Nevadas, but instead I've now discovered that I don't have the right software required edit .mts files. I did do some initial research that showed Edius can edit .mts files - which is why I felt comfortable buying this camera - but as it turns out, Edius Pro 4.5 is the version required. I do have 4.5 on my desktop computer back in the studio, but on the laptop I have here, I only have version 3.5.

So, as it stands, I can download the cips and then convert them into Canopus HQ HDV .AVI files and then edit it. The conversion process takes forever. If that's the case, don't expect daily vlog updates. I will do my best, but we'll see how it goes.

Stay tuned.

Comments

[michael]

Hey, I have the HG10 and would like a tip if you got a second.

I simply need to convert the highest quality video into something which I can edit with either sony vegas 8.0, edius 4.5 or adobe premiere pro cs3

I'm a newbie

[Andrew Hsu]

Hello Michael,
If you have Sony Vegas or Edius 4.5, you can natively edit the ACVHD footage from your Canon HG10 immediately after you've downloaded it to your computer.

If you want to CONVERT the footage into something you can edit with Premiere, you'll need Vegas or Edius to do it.

In other words; if you have access to the aforementioned versions of Vegas or Edius, just use those to edit and you won't have to convert the videos at all.

If that doesn't answer your question, please feel free to expand.