Canon VIXIA HF R20 Full HD Camcorder with 8GB Internal Flash Memory (Black)

Just received this yesterday, and I've had a chance to experiment with it in a nearby park today, a beautiful, sunny day in Southern California.Let me first say that I have relatively big hands, and have no trouble whatsoever operating this unit. It's very lightweight and fits quite nicely in my hand, with shooting controls (start/stop, zoom, power) pretty much where I expect to find them. Despite some reviewers' complaints about difficulty using this camcorder, I've had no trouble getting it do what I wanted without referring to the manual much at all (although I found that when I did have a question about a more obscure control or setting, the abbreviated printed manual is not very useful and tends to refer you to the PDF version on the accompanying CD-ROM disc annoyingly often).A key consideration for me with this purchase is the ability to not only create very high quality 1080 resolution video, but also to have a way to easily watch the recordings on our 60" plasma TV and then store them on a shelf. The camcorder does have an HDMI port, but this is kind of a hassle when you want to watch your videos, as connections are not always convenient to make. So I wanted to make use of this camcorder's AVCHD function that allows a lossless transfer to DVD-R discs that will play on most Blu-ray players. To record an AVCHD Disc, you should use the FXD quality setting while shooting, which is the second highest bit rate (17 Mbps); using the higher MXD setting (24 Mbps) will require the accompanying PC software to scale it back down to 17 Mbps, so there's no point in using the highest setting if you want to make AVCHD Discs. Fortunately, the FXD setting looks great, and I was able to make a test AVCHD Disc without any difficulty using the "Video Browser" software that's bundled with the camcorder. Don't bother with the "Video Transfer" application that also comes with, as it's just a subset of the Video Browser tool and does not have as many features.While the AVCHD Disc function was a huge selling point for me, I also wanted to ensure this unit would do the job with respect to HD video quality. I experimented with a number of settings during my park outing, and learned some things along the way. According to the manual, this camcorder always records using 1080i (interlace), but offers two other frame rates: 30 frames per second (fps) and 24 fps. These last two appear to be synthesized by the camcorder from the actual 1080i recordings in the memory -- the idea apparently being that limiting the temporal (motion) resolution to 24 or 30 fps will make your videos look more "cinematic". They really don't in my opinion. I tested this with a relatively quick pan across a park scene, and while the 1080i/60 motion was smooth, the 30 fps setting just made the pan look less smooth and annoyingly "juddery". I will stick with the 1080i/60 setting, which is also what Canon recommends as "suitable for most situations".Outdoor use seems to yield the best results quality-wise. The few indoor tests I've done suggest that you'll need pretty good lighting to get rid of the noise and compression artifacts that become more apparent in lower lighting conditions, even at higher bit rate settings (MXP and FXP). This camcorder does not support an accessory light, but for $349, who can complain?8GB of internal memory is sufficient for short recordings, but it's not really enough for a full day of use. So I also bought a 16GB Sandisk Ultra Class 4 SD card (quite a mouthful), which works fine and adds plenty of recording time. Recording on the SD card does seem to use slightly more battery power than the internal memory for some reason. In fact, based on my use today, I recommend getting a second battery if you'll be out in the field for very long. Battery life is not one of this model's strongest points, but this is most likely due to the very small size of the camcorder and its very light weight. Engineers must make tradeoffs like this when designing a product that is, by definition, intended to be highly portable. $70 for a second battery seems pretty steep, however, so this should be kept in mind when considering this unit; realistic battery life is less than one hour when using HD (FXP) mode and the zoom control fairly regularly.In summary, I would not hesitate to recommend this unit for casual high quality HD recordings during family events such as vacations, soccer games and the like. You can't beat the performance and high portability for the remarkably low price. I'm quite impressed and pleased with the unit.

Bought this camcorder about two weeks ago, also bough 2 64GB SDXC memory cards to use with this camcorder. Compare with my old camera still uses tapes, this camcorder is light years ahead. It offers everything we need plus a lot more. There are a few function issues with this product.First issue, the cmcorder has a recording relay feature. You can set the primary recording media (in my case, I select media A which is one of the 64GB SDHC cards), and you can select the secondary recording media in the event the primary media ran out of capacity (I set media B to be the secondary media). Tried it, it works great. Thruned the camera on next day, and I noticed the relaying function is off, I set it again, tried it, works. Cycled the power, the relaying function is off again. Called Canon, and the tech support was surprised to hear this, he got an exact same camcorder, and tried it, he got the same result. He consulted with their senior tech support, and was informed all their products with the feature do the same thing. It's not too big of a deal to us. If you are using this camcorder to record some long hous event, you may want to consider something else.Second issue, the camcorder seems to have trouble with the SDXC cards. Several times, it couldn't replay the video recorded on the memory cards, and shows no video on the card which I just recorded some video for testing. Contacted Canon support, they told me it's the memory cards, and ask me to replace them. So, I borrowed some SDXC cards from my friends, try them with the same results. Contacted Canon suport again, they said there may be something wrong with the unit I have, and ask me to return it, and get a new one. I went to Bestbuy, and tried it with the same result. I think there is a design issue how the camcorder interface with SDXC cards. This does not bother us, since the card reader on my laptop PC does not support SDXC. I had to get 2 SDHC 32GB class 10 cards which solves the problems.If you record the video at highest quality, the file sizes are huge. I recorded a 10 minutes video, I ended up with a 2GB video file. Make sure you get the largest capacity of memory cards you can get, if you want to record the videos at highest quality.The video file has MTS file extension, my home PC has trouble to play the video, the sound and graphic do not sync, my office PC has no problem with the video. My office PC is new with much powerful processor which makes a huge difference. Make sure your PC is powerful enough to handel the MTS files.The battery is horrible, I was recording my son's concert at school, the battery only lasted about 40 to 45 minutes, the battery was fully charged. It won't be a bad idea to carry a 2nd battery with you as back up.