Canon touts 64GB Vixia HF S11 camcorder
updated 11:40 am EDT, Wed August 19, 2009
Canon Vixia HF S11
Not content to stop with still cameras, Canon today added a lone HD camcorder to its range. The Vixia HF S11 is treated as the new flagship and is regarded as the closest to a professional video camera. It adds a new extra long-range optical image stabilization system that corrects the image across all of the lens' reach, and extra manual controls for focus and gain give veterans more input as to the final image. Internal memory has been given a lift to 64GB and gives the HF S11 enough storage for up to 24 hours of HD with enough compression; SDHC cards are an option for more.
Additional tricks include a video snapshot mode that records successive 4-second clips rather than one continuous stretch, the option of recording in 24p for film-speed capture, and 8-megapixel still photos. Canon delivers its premium Vixia in mid-September for $1,500 ($1,400 on its website) and will also ship an accessory, the $120 RA-V1 Remote Control Adapter, at the same time to provide support for wired remotes.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: May 2005
It's all great...
Unfortunately, Canon (along other makers that provide 24p on their HD camcorders) continues to refuse to encode 24 progressive frames into an AVCHD file as, well, 24 progressive frames. Instead, it inserts pull-down (telecine) fields and packages that 24p stream in 60 interlaced fields. Editing this material in a 24p timeline is a serious nuisance, requiring third-party software. Free solutions are extremely cumbersome, buggy and unstable. Paid solutions are stable, but cost money. All that, just so that we can wrestle those 24 progressive frames out of 60 interlaced fields, before we can properly edit them.
I'd love to hear Canon's explanation, why is this the case.