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"Great camera for work and play"
4.0 starson by ID29Pros: Video quality
Video display
Controls/Touch Screen
Built-in memory and SD card option
External mic plug
Battery lifeCons: Editing software it comes with
AVCHD formatSummary: I bought this camera for work about a month ago. So far, so good! I'm not by any means a professional videographer, but use this to make short videos for work (promotional videos for our website, interviews, etc) as well as using it for photos for both the web and print.
Controls are easy (helps that I was using a Canon HV20 before I upgraded) and quality is great.
I have no complaints yet.
Only thing that isn't great is the video editing software it comes with. You're going to want Pinnacle 15 (though I understand Pinnacle 11 works with this). Because it records on AVCHD, many of the video editing software doesn't support this file type. I had a heck of a time figuring this out. On my home iMac (which is from 2006), the iMovie doesn't support the file type, but the new iMovie (08 or later) does.
I called Canon when I couldn't edit the file type on my work computer (Windows Movie Maker and also tried my out of date Pinnacle 10. Was sad to hear about this AVCHD format, but it makes sense and I'm thankful the newer editing software out there supports this. Just something to be aware of when purchasing.
My husband is a professional videographer (tv producer) and borrowed this for a project he's working on and was very happy with it- so that says something about this camera! We think this will be our next home video camera to purchase.