Canon HF S100 – HD AVCHD/SDHC camcorder

Canon announced a bunch of new camcorder models. The one I’m looking for is the Canon HF200 and the HF S100 Full-HD camcorders . As I reported before, the Canon HF100 is in my opinion the best low budget AVCHD/SDHC available at the moment. The picture quality of this model, which was brought to the public on April 2008 is breathtaking. But in comparison to the Panasonic HDC SD100, the old Canon camcorder can’t really compete with Panasonic’s feature set, Continue reading “Canon HF S100 – HD AVCHD/SDHC camcorder”

NVIDIA VDPAU 180.11 test against .mts (AVCHD) and .mkv (Matroska/h264) playback

[UPDATE] Read here about the latest development of NVIDIA’s vdpau video output driver: Tag: vdpau
NVIDIA’s hardware acceleration for HD (H264) content is now reality since they published their first beta driver, the 180.06 on the 14th of November 2008. I’ve tested these new Beta driver here, and found a few bugs. I skipped the test of the driver 180.08 published 4 days later, but tested the 180.11 version from 2nd December, But before you continue: none of my found bugs were fixed. Only the OpenGL3.0 and other stuff I don’t need atm found their way into the new driver. The list below is short summary of the bugs I’ve found in the last 180.06 driver. All bugs are also present in the new one 180.11 driver. I won’t publish a new test if a new driver will be released, but simple update this section, and will add update comments to it: Continue reading “NVIDIA VDPAU 180.11 test against .mts (AVCHD) and .mkv (Matroska/h264) playback”

HOWTO: Convert and write AVCHD (.mts) to DVD with Linux

You’ve got a brand-new AVCHD camcorder from Panasonic, Sony or Canon and recorded your kids the first time in HD quality and want now to show the footage to your children’s grandmother?
Sure, no problem.
Just plug your camcorder directly into your also brand-new BluRay-writer or convert and author the footage with your Windows box first 😉 *kidding*
We’re of course on Linux and we don’t have a BluRay-writer, at least grandma doesn’t have one. What now? Well – I assume granny has a DVD-player. And we’re in the game again. I assume also you know how to compile (see other articles at this site, if not) and you also know how to install missing packages (e.g.: “apt-get install dvdauthor growisofs” ).
We just need these free Linux tools: Continue reading “HOWTO: Convert and write AVCHD (.mts) to DVD with Linux”

Playback Problem of AVCHD (.mts) with CoreAVC 1.8.5.0

Like in older versions, such as 1.7.0 and 1.8.0, CoreAVC version 1.8.5 has still problems playing back AVCHD. The affected camcorder models I know of are:

  • Canon HF10
  • Canon HF100
  • Panasonic HDC-SD1
  • Panasonic HDC-SD5
  • Panasonic HDC-SD9
  • Panasonic HDC-SD100

The playback still jitter a lot if used without a deinterlacer, and I’ve got about 10 frames a second (estimated). Seeking within the footage works now, wheres regarding the existing problems it’s a really cold comfort.
A workaround, for playing back AVCHD footage is described here at several places. Just use latest mplayer and a decent CPU.
If anybody likes to extend the list of affected camcorder models, please post them here, I’ll update the list above and will keep tracking this issue.

Panasonic HDC-SD100 vs. Canon HF100

Panasonic HDC-SD100
This is a short story about my experience with these two cams. The Panasonic HDC-SD100 and the Canon HF100.
I had them two weeks for a thorough comparison. Well – I’m talking about a comparison for me, not the full blown comparisons and reviews like this one. I’ve studied the Internet article coming those days, but they all have been not really satisfying to my. I’m not that much of a pro regarding camcorders. But I know what I wanted. Continue reading “Panasonic HDC-SD100 vs. Canon HF100”

List of affected AVCHD CamCorders

This is a list of AVCHD Camcorders, which do not work with CoreAVC decoder version > 1.7.0.

Like in older versions, such as 1.7.0 and 1.8.0, CoreAVC version 1.8.5 has still problems playing back AVCHD. The affected camcorder models I know of are:

  • Canon HF10
  • Canon HF100
  • Panasonic HDC-SD1
  • Panasonic HDC-SD5
  • Panasonic HDC-SD9
  • Panasonic HDC-SD100


The playback still jitter a lot if used without a deinterlacer, and I’ve got only about 10 frames a second (estimated). Seeking within the footage works now (was broken in version 1.8.0), wheres regarding the existing problems it’s a really cold comfort.
A workaround, for playing back AVCHD footage is described here at several places. Just use latest mplayer and a decent CPU.
If anybody likes to extend the list of affected camcorder models, please post them here, I’ll update the list above and will keep tracking this issue.
I’m using CoreAVC-for-Linux. If you are using Windows, please post this information as well as the version of CoreAVC you are using. Thanks.

[UPDATE] I’ve posted a question at CoreCodec’s forum, where I ask, whether AVCHD content supposed to work at all. I’m not very confident in the meantime, but let’s try it anyway.