My new disappointing toy

I’ve been thinking about it for some time, in fact since I left News10 more than two years ago. I wanted to buy a new video camcorder. My old nine year old Sony has served me well, capturing fun vacations and family gatherings, even shooting news stories which aired in San Francisco and Sacramento. But, as happens over time with these things, the picture is getting a bit soft, the camera is showing its age. With home HD cameras now out there at fairly reasonable prices, I thought it was time to take the step (particularly since we’re leaving next week for an 18 day European cruise).

I’ve had excellent luck with Sony, so that was my first choice. I was impressed with the camera, but since the consumer grade Sonys no longer have an input for an external microphone (which to me is like buying a camera without a lens), I had to cross Sony off my list.

After research, I settled on the Canon HF R11 (which shoots in HD and has a microphone input), and when I saw it at Costco this week for under $600 including all the accessories, I bought it. The features, video, and audio are all reasonable good. The only downside was the deplorable Pixela editing system that came packaged with it. But that’s not a problem because there are other great editing programs available for under $100 from Avid (Pinnacle) and Adobe (Premiere Elements).

After shooting some video just to get to know the camera and its features, I downloaded the video from the camera to my computer without a problem. I edited a short project just to get the feel of the software, and then exported the finished masterpiece back to the camera so it could be played back on an HDTV. Oh … wait … that’s the disappointing part.

The camera would not accept its own video after it had been edited on third party software! Seriously! I called Canon tech support, twice, and both times their reps confirmed that only video edited on the totally crappy software that came bundled with the camera would work. The Canon camera will not accept video edited on competitors' software.

I’ve searched for solutions online and talked with one of my really smart tech savvy friends. We’ve both come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, Canon has failed to make their camera compatible with the rest of the editing world. My friend tells me that it would likely be a simple tweak to the software program in the camera. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t work. If anyone from Canon is reading this, come on, get your compatibility act together. If anyone from Sony is reading this, come on, add an input for a microphone. If anyone from Pinnacle or Adobe Premiere is reading this, try working with the hardware manufacturers to make your programs more user friendly. And if anyone from Costco is reading this, sorry, but the camera is already back in its box and will be returned this week. Looks like the old Sony will be going on another vacation.