Customer Reviews
WOW 
2008-05-11
Good packaging great accessories put together well the quality is gorgeous but need a ps3 to view the recordings
Amazing Video Quality 2008-05-09
Pros:
Much smaller than my old Canon Optura Xi
Fantastic 1080i HD @ 60 frames per second
Can convert to 1080p @ 30 frames per second (with help...)
Image stabilization works well at maximum zoom
Uncompressed AVCHD has much better quality than flash based MPEG4 cameras
Good low-light performance
Cons:
Stills are useless (just frame-grab from video - same quality)
Much bigger than my friends new Panasonic (it is only SD though)
Wish the camera did 1080p natively :(
24p mode is useless.
Notes:
I also bought a Sanyo Xacti 720p - the Canon is *way* better. The Sanyo has pretty bad compression artifacts including jaggies and macroblocking. On the other hand, the Sanyo takes much better still pictures.
Also, I tried using Apple iMovie '08 to edit - would not de-interlace at 1080p, only 720p. So if you want to convert to 1080p, you will need another video editor (I bought Final Cut Express 4, but have not tried it yet...)
think hard before buying this worthless camera 
2008-05-05
This camera has serious problems. First, if you want to burn a high-def disc, what canon doesn't tell you is you need their dw-1000 burner costing hundreds of dollars and blue-ray burnable dvds. Oh, you want to play that burnt disc, you will need a blue-ray dvd player. Ok, so maybe you want to just burn a regular dvd? Well, you will need an intel 16-quad core, 2^32 gb of ddram and about 4 weeks computing time. Of course, why would you want to buy a high-def video recorder to burn standard dvd? Oh you want an avi or mpeg? Forget it! The software that comes with the camera is absurd. First, it is replete with spelling and grammatical errors - should make you feel confident! Then it is virtually unusable. Canon actually told me to purchase sony vegas dvd software for hundreds of dollars too. I told them no way and they said try IMovie 08 - of course on a pc, that is not too easy to do! And if you want support, forget it, you are on your own. The goal of canon support when I contacted them was to simply get me off the phone - not really a problem since they knew next to nothing. Oh and you want to take a pic with the camera, better get yourself a micro-sd memory card - sure their is 40gb of hard-disk space but you can't use any of it for your 800kb crappy picture. And when plugging in to usb, even if the battery is charged, you must have the power cable in. And good luck focusing in on anything in close range. The camera never can so it just continues to adjust the focus constantly. Long story short, I would not pay $50 for this camera.
Best Picture 2008-05-02
This was my family's first HD camcorder. We had a really old SONY camcorder that lasted for 8 years, but it finally died. We were in a hurry to get a camcorder, but I thought we should get a pretty descent one and found this. The SONY one's cost over $1000 this cost $800. This camcorder has great picture quality. It looks like your actually in it. The battery life might be a little short, but you could get a bigger one. It comes with cables, so you can watch the recorded video and also comes with software that lets you edit and burn videos.
Great camcorder, would you like to see some sample footage? 2008-05-02
The existing reviews here are great and pretty much cover what you need to know about the HG10. What you'd REALLY like to see is some sample footage, right? Look no further than vimeo... there is a HG10 "channel" on vimeo where you can see a ton of sample footage and short films, etc, all shot with the HG10. [...]I've been using my HG10 for about 2 months and I love it. You'll find some of my sample footage on that channel. A few recommendations if you purchase this camera:
1. use an external mic if you really care about sound quality. the internal mic is ok, but it picks up the (very quiet) lens sounds during focusing and zooming, and it is located on top of the camera instead of the front... so you get the sound of your own breathing instead of what you really want to hear, the stuff in front of the lens.
2. invest in Sony Vegas Movie Studio for editing this footage. totally solid software and works great with the AVCHD footage.
3. make a lot of backups! we've all been using various magnetic tapes (and even film) for years and years, many of them still sitting on shelves and ready to be pulled and played in some ancient system if you wanted to relive some old memories... DVD-Rs are not permanent! if you only backup to them, you'll try to play/copy/read them a few years in the future and they won't work. That fantastic video you got of your new baby will be gone when the kid gets old enough to want to watch it. Get those video files on to some form of magnetic media (harddrives are cheap) and archive, archive, archive.
Great quality picture! 
2008-04-23
The Canon HG10 AVCHD Format Hard Disk Drive Camcorder delivers high definition technology with the effortless ease of recording video directly onto a hard disk. Incorporating the latest AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) format, it puts superb image reproduction and advanced features at your fingertips in a compact AVCHD Format HDD camcorder, which means you'll carry it everywhere you want to capture the special moments in your life in true HD. Among the Canon Exclusive features on the HG10 are Canon's own Full HD CMOS sensor and advanced DIGIC DV II image processor. More exclusives are SuperRange Optical Image Stabilization, Instant Auto Focus and our new 2.7" Widescreen Multi-Angle Vivid LCD. With the Genuine Canon 10x HD video zoom lens and a host of other advanced features the HG10 is the right choice in HDD camcorders. Canon Exclusive - SuperRange Optical Image Stabilization Canon Exclusive - Instant AF 24 fps Cinema Mode HDD Photo Grab from Video 2.7 Multi-Angle Vivid Widescreen LCD Superb Shooting Control Advanced Photo Features to 3 Megapixel Programmed AutoExposure modes Minimum Focusing Distance 10 mm (wide)/ 1m (tele) White Balance - Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Fluorescent H Image Stabilization - SuperRange Optical (lens shift) Viewfinder - Widescreen 0.27 Color Viewfinder/ (Approx. 123,000 pixels) Recording Media - Hard Disk Drive 40 GB (Internal) Audio - HD - Dolby Digital 2ch (AC-3 2ch) Dimensions - (WxHxD) 3.2 x 3.0 x 5.1 inch; Weight (not including lens and battery pack) 1.1 lbs.
So Far, So Good 2008-04-17
Picture quality on this camera is outstanding. Unfortunately, I haven't tranferred any movies to my pc yet to tell how that process is. It was one of my concerns about the AVCHD file type, and one that I couldn't find alot of insight into from everyday users as I searched for a camera. We'll see how that process goes when I get around to it. The camera, though, is comfortable in my hands, is light, and takes great home movies.
Great Hi-Def/Hard Drive Camcorder 2008-04-15
Haven't been able to see the full capability of this camera yet, as I did not create any disks, and do not have a Blu-Ray writer. However, the picture looks great, and it has been very user friendly. The fact that it has a remote control is nice, because you can just connect it up to the TV and watch your video that way.
Very happy with this purchase!
Twice Bought. Twice Returned for mechanical failure. 2008-04-13
I bought this camera twice from Amazon. Returned it both times.
First time the lens shutter stopped opening when I turned the camera on. Called Canon technical support. They had no idea why it was doing it. They suggested draining the battery down all the way (?) and recharging and trying it again. Did that. The shutter opened half way and that was it. Shipped it back to Amazon thinking defective unit, it happens.
Read several reviews - and everybody seems to agree that HG-10 is the best overall HD-High Def camera around. The videos were pretty good actually, even in the low light and I really could not bring myself to buy a JVC or a Sanyo.
So bite the bullet and buy another HG-10 from Amazon. That unit, believe it or not, worked for exactly two weeks and one morning at work after I had shot 7 episodes of my video blog - it gave me a message - Hard Drive Not Accessible. I sat there for at least 4 minutes, staring at the screen, thinking to myself - this could not be happening to me.
Again.
Called Canon again - lovely bunch of people by the way - and they said, "Well once in a while the hard drives do blow up. Are you sure you got a new unit?" Yes I am sure. "Well you need to ship it back."
And so that camera, with 7 of my videos, went back to Amazon.
I don't know what to say - I like the camera, like the videos, like the easy menus but to see a $800 camera blow up, twice in my hands AND I am paranoid careful about my equipment. I don't know what to say. If you do buy this camera - keep the box, manuals, everything that comes with it - in a safe place for at least 30 days just in case something like this happen to you.
You have been warned!
Good camcorder, a bit of mac trouble though workable 2008-04-13
Great compact camcorder, two possible formats- High def and reg def. great image on both. I have shot with highend prosumer cameras and I have to say that this is comparable, the only one on the market with a mic jack to attach extrenal mic. It is compact and shoots great, easy to use and you can attach additional lenses. Great battery life.
HOWEVER...
AVCHD format is not widely used yet. the .m2v files are a nightmare to edit on any consumer or professional editing system. I have over 10 years of video production experience so I figured out different ways to edit the files, however if you are a novice it will be extremey difficult for you to figure out the editing. Canon bundles with a DVD burn software that is okay for getting the raw footage to DVD, but it is not great to edit any of the footage or do anything creative.
The interface though for editing is still very clunky, need to convert files to a PC compatible format with Canon bundled software in order to edit on MovieMaker.
VOLTAIC HD...
Importing into Final Cut pro is another story, BUT with a program created by shareware Voltaic it has become a piece of cake. The download is $30, but the best 30 bucks I ever spent. I simply move the .m2v files from the camcorder on my PC (I wouldn't plug the camera into a mac)onto a flash thumb drive, open them on my mac and drop them into the Votaic program, it comverts them to .mov and then I can import into FCP. I am REALLY hoping that FCP will come with the AVCHD codec soon, but in the meantime this $30 solution is workable.
