For those interested, here is a my first blog in HD using the Xacti HD1010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jDsNe_bmtE (there is also some 300fps video in there too, and the intro video is upscaled) and also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91iX5sUXrOo compare with the old SD Canon Optura 60 DV tape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUNqDK2Ryrg Both are shot under the same conditions, and I still have no idea how to use the Xacti properly. The same external mic isn't as good on the Xacti, but this just needs tweaking I think. Some 50HZ mains hum audible due to the associated charger cable. The outside footage uses the internal mic. The Xacti loses background focus sometimes when I wave my hands around, but otherwise is pretty good. I can probably use some fixed manual focus mode to avoid this? Note that the final HD MP4 file was created with a default 1280x720 setting in MPEG Streamclip from a 20Mpbs MPEG2 output from Ulead Video Studio 12. Most interestingly the new HD MP4 is a good 25% less in file size than the old SD cam MP4 created by Ulead (125MB vs 150MB for 10min), and the results are still much better than the SD cam. For those who think HD takes up too much space, my hard drive space requirements have now actually dropped since going to HD. As the H.264 files direct from the cam are smaller than the MPEG2 files from the SD cam. And as you can see, the final MP4 blog file is the same or smaller for better quality. Dave.
