The interest was around sections of the video that appeared as if the were shot using tilt-shift and then stop motion animation to give the impression of movement. It turns out that it was exactly how the segments were created and all the stills were taken on a Canon EOS 400D. The effect gives the sensation of miniaturization, making the sequences appear model like.

‘Lay Down & Die’ by ‘The Monday Club’ from Melting Point Media on Vimeo.

The video was created in two weeks, for Sheffield’s ‘2weeks 2make it’ competition – not bad at all for a fortnight of graft I think you’ll agree…

Personal Trainer has been really pleased with the high quality images from his HG10, bought to record training videos to sell on the net. However, he is beginning to realise that his lack of expertise may limit him when it comes to editing HD footage. Basically, he wants to ‘take the videos, crop them, create a new soundtrack and also take some stills from the videos to use as pictures’, and has asked for any good advice about doing this using a dual core processor PC and Adobe Premiere Pro – let him know if you’ve used this set-up to create a great film.

He might find it useful to post a few comments or questions on the Studio MSV blog, where artisan wedding video producer Andrew Hsu bought an HG10 to take on his trip to Reno. Andrew had some initial issues with manipulating the .mts files – he has Edius Pro 4.5 on his PC, which handles the footage fine, but on his laptop he has to convert to Canopus HQ HDV .AVI files for editing. However, it looks like his perseveracne has paid off, as he captured some beautiful vacation video with the HG10.

RicoBergholdHansen has dedicated his YouTube page to HG10 videos, though he also uploads them at Vimeo in much higher quality. His wind power video is mesmerising. It’s basically nothing more then a couple of wind turbines in action, but the extreme close ups of the propellers, smoothly inter-cut long shots, footage of the shadows they cast upon the landscape, and Lemon Jelly soundtrack makes it something special. It was all edited using Sony Vegas Studio Platinum 8.

Garrymurray1 is another new HG10 owner who has uploaded some test footage of a day at Aberdeen Beach. Garry pans acorss the sands to the sound of Kings of Leon, zooming in on unexpected details that catch his eye and making me want to pack up everything in a 60s VW campervan and head to the nearest stretch of coast.

Got any footage you want to show off to the world? Upload it and post a link in the comments section.

This means you must be familiar with how to edit footage filmed with your HG10. Chief Geek found himself unprepared at first, but soon found that for his MacBook pro: “iMovie took the video off of my camera with no extra software, it just worked the first time.” For PC users he suggests that “if you own a 32 bit version of Windows, you might want to use the software your camcorder came with and then transcode the files into something else, and then move it to your favorite movie editing program.”

Sean from Sean’s Tech Stuff also had a similar experience when he first got his HG10:“Here’s where I really started to learn about the AVCHD format and what it’s all about. As it turns out, AVCHD is not THE standard but one of two standards, the other being HDV. And it turns out that AVCHD vs HDV camcorders are related in a minor way to the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD war.”

Sean goes on to explain that it’s very easy to drop the footage straight on to blu-ray disc for viewing purposes, but again if the footage needs to be edited, some popular editing suites don’t yet have the capability for AVCHD yet. He concludes by highly recommending the camera, but warning that you will be on the “bleeding edge” of editing software and things will improve considerably once everyone has caught up software-wise.

Check out the blogs for Chief Geek and Sean’s full experiences, and to see one example of what the HG10 can do once you’re up and running, look to one of our trialists Phil Campbell, who has uploaded a couple more videos featuring new star actor Ella. You can check out a video of her with the HG10 on full auto mode, and another making good use of the close up.

To summarise for camera virgins out there, your main options are MiniDV (standard semi-professional tape format) using HDV (an inexpensive high def format that uses MPEG2 compression to fit HD format onto standard def MiniDV or DV tapes) and AVCHD (a high definition recording format introduced mid-2006 and storable on hard drive, disk or memory card).

There’s an interesting conversation in AVS Forum about the relative merits of MiniDV and AVCHD cameras, as FoF404 deliberates whether to upgrade to an HV20 or HG10. DLCPhoto has heard that ‘the MiniDV recording of HD has less compression and higher data rate capture than AVCHD, and therefore has somewhat superior image quality’ and that ‘even though AVCHD might be the future standard, as it stands right now, tools for working with these files are less available and mature than for those to work with the files from MiniDV’. Cagey is also worried about the potential problems with editing: ‘I would like for a hard drive solution to work for me, I just want to make sure I don’t sacrifice other features for convenience.’

However, Kring strongly believes that, despite the teething issues with software, any investment at this point has to be in AVCHD, and that the HG10 is a great camera to choose:

So, is AVCHD still too raw or would it be madness to buy anything else at this point? Join the debate.

Last week, we wrote about various bloggers who had recently purchased a HG10, including 37prime. Well, he’s continued to test out the camera and has recently uploaded a couple of videos on his blog. The first clip includes footage of excellent multiplayer shoot ‘em up ‘Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory’ and includes notes on the footage such as the frames per second, how it was encoded and problems when importing the clip using Final Cut Pro. If you have any questions, comments or requests for what you’d like to see the HG10 do, visit him and let him know.

37prime’s second clip features a new star in the form of Meatloaf T. Cat, who spends the whole clip looking rather nervous while standing on the precarious position of the back of a chair. HG10 owners do seem to be animal lovers (remember Orville?) so if you’re a HG10 owner with a pet, let us know if you have footage of him or her and we can make a feature on HG10 creatures.

DrNippleNutz at AVS Forums is deliberating between the HF10 and HG10. Lekom’s advice is that the HG10′s bigger sensor means better picture quality, especially indoors and in low light. Kring agrees that he’s happy with the ‘fantastic picture’ on his HG10 and that ‘I do not see any benefits of the HF20 over the HG10′; read more here.

There are a number of recent threads on AV Forums about whether the HG10 is the best all-round HDD cam on the market. In Which HDV model?, RossC wants a cam for ‘typical family events/holidays’ and redsox_mark outlines the difference between the different Canon and Sony models. Tredders recommends the HG10 for the ‘stunning’ images.

In another thread, having found an HG10 at an excellent price, Danz1985 is torn between that and the HV20 – he asks for user experiences, so let him know which you would recommend.

And if you decide on the HG10, our trialist Senu has some excellent advice for thejollyboys, who asks for help with software and editing on his new camera. Thejollyboys concludes:

Word of mouth: it’s a wonderful thing. Any other forums or threads you’ve found helpful in your HDD/HD camera choice?

He has a list of questions for fellow HG10 users about what the differences are between softwares, and which online resources they have found useful. Eric has already replied with his experiences of the Nero 8 and Corel programs but wants to find something clearer for the basics: ‘simplicity is definitely key for me’.

We’re sure there are many of you out there who are able to chip in with your own experiences or who have been wondering about these very same questions, so head on over and help build a definitive HG10 user resource!