Less than a year after unveiling its tiny, tapeless, and high-definition Vixia HF10 camcorder, Canon has just announced three new high-def additions to its Vixia camcorder line. All the new models use the AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) format when capturing video to their flash drives, hard drives, or memory cards.
The tapeless Vixia HF11 ($1300) is the same physical size as the HF10, but packs in a 32GB flash drive as compared to the HF10's 16GB drive. Like the HF10, the HF11 also offers an SDHC card slot, which lets the user boost the camcorder's on-board storage by another 32GB. Class 4 SDHC cards are required to capture full high-def video footage.
Canon claims the HF11 holds three hours of footage at its highest-quality video setting and up to 12 hours of footage at its lowest-quality setting. The HF 11 writes video data at a 24Mbps bit rate, as compared to the HF10's 17Mbps bit rate; 24Mbps is the maximum bit rate that can be handled by the AVCHD codec. The new camcorder can also shoot 3-megapixel still images, as well as grab 2-megapixel still frames from video footage.
Also announced are two upgrades to Canon's hard-drive camcorder line: the $950 Vixia HG20 (60GB) and the $1300 Vixia HG21 (120GB). The two hard-drive models replace Canon's Vixia HG10 camcorder. New to the HG line updates is the ability to also record video to the camcorders' SDHC cards; the HG10 could only save stills to the card.
According to Canon, the 60GB Vixia HG20 will record up to 5.5 hours of video at its highest-quality setting, while the 120GB Vixia HG21 can store 11 hours of footage at the best setting.
New to all the camcorders is the ability to output video footage to Blu-ray disc after the on-camera footage is offloaded to a computer. All the new entries in the Vixia line can also print images directly when connected to a printer.
The Vixia HF11, HG20, and HG21 are all slated for availability in September 2008. No hard release date has been announced.
