canon g40 settings question

I have to admit, I know very little about camcorders but bought a canon g40 over the weekend. I figure I will pick it up and learn as I go, but first am unsure what recording mode (video quality) to select. Is it better to use 28mbps, 24, or 17? My knowledge on this is limited and I am not finding much by googling so thought I'd start here. Also, can someone recommend a video editing software that isn't too hard to learn? I know Final Cut is really good but I think that's a little out of my realm to start with.

I do plan on using the dual slot so I can record mp4 and avchd but as of right now I only have 1 card in it and am recording to avchd. I will mostly be burning to DVD home movies of family and friends or storing them on my computer.

I appreciate any feedback! I bought this solely for recording my new baby for home videos that will last forever.

kinggirl said:

I have to admit, I know very little about camcorders but bought a canon g40 over the weekend. ..

I appreciate any feedback! I bought this solely for recording my new baby for home videos that will last forever.

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Hi, I assume you are referring to the HF G40,

I've been using the earlier & very similar HF G30 for the last two years, and viewing my videos on a 50" plasma TV screen at full resolution. Excellent detail. Like you I was puzzled by the different settings on offer, so tried a few of them, and decided to use 17MB/s and 50i AVCHD for my normal shooting. Occasionally I've used the facility to make a copy of my files in MP4 format using the 2nd. card slot facility. This is easier, I believe for uploading to YouTube. (I've kept away from "Cinema" mode, and have my G30 on "M" mode - "AUTO" takes too much control away from me. "M" mode allows me to vary the tone of my videos which I use occasionally to reduce clipping of highlights. Much of what I shoot is essentially moving snapshots of family events etc. - nothing artistic, but I do shoot a fair amount of wildlife.

If you're shooting outside, I strongly advise using a wind gagged microphone. (I use the dedicated Canon model, and it does a good job suppressing wind noise.)

I can't really advise on current video editing software. but have tried Moviemaker (free with Windows) and the captions, titles etc. looked OK. Hope this gets you started.

(If you use the higher MBs settings, you may find that you are limited in what you can do in camera. The G30 certainly has its limits; perhaps the G40 has a faster processor, and isn't as restricted.)

Hope this helps.

kinggirl said:

---- Is it better to use 28mbps, 24, or 17?

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The highest is best if you want to keep the quality your camera can produce. It is sort of like snapshots vs. enlargements. You want 1920x1080p / 59.94 fps. AVCHD or MP4 won't matter. A few years ago, AVCHD was not Apple friendly. I think it is now.

kinggirl said:

can someone recommend a video editing software that isn't too hard to learn?

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Video editing can be confusing. The best learning experience I ever found is a course on Lynda.com for Premier Elements. The most common consumer priced, under $100 editing programs are Premier Elements, Sony Movie Studio Platinum, Corel Video Studio Pro, Cyberlink PowerDiretor and Magix Movie Edit. The two most common and dependable free ones are Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. All of them produce high quality output.

kinggirl said:

I do plan on using the dual slot so I can record mp4 and avchd but as of right now I only have 1 card in it and am recording to avchd.

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Having both MP4 files and AVCHD files only makes more work after you shoot.

kinggirl said:

I will mostly be burning to DVD home movies of family and friends or storing them on my computer.

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DVDs were invented when we had tube TVs. If you burn DVDs with your HD quality camera, your work will be reduced to bad, fuzzy, unclear video. If you must do discs, you need to ramp up to Blu-Ray quality. If your finished videos are shorter than about 20 minutes there is a format called "AVCHD Disc". It uses the old cheap DVD discs but formats and plays them in HD Blu-Ray quality.

kinggirl said:

I appreciate any feedback! I bought this solely for recording my new baby for home videos that will last forever.

Click to expand...

Good luck with the parenting!

kinggirl said:

Is it better to use 28mbps, 24, or 17?

I do plan on using the dual slot so I can record mp4 and avchd but as of right now I only have 1 card in it and am recording to avchd. I will mostly be burning to DVD home movies of family and friends or storing them on my computer.

I appreciate any feedback! I bought this solely for recording my new baby for home videos that will last forever.

Click to expand...

Got the g40 after lots of searching and review reading. Very happy with it

I would suggest always go with the highest number for that format.

Quality captured is then as good as it gets. Just be aware of the record time left for a card size if a longer recording is needed. Having two cards is great with recording time.

Try to burn to blu ray and keep the original file. If someone would like a DVD, make one for them from that original file.