To HD or not to HD?

[ObeyOne]

Hi all.. looking to buy my 1st camcorder to record my kids growing up and holidays etc.

Was first of all looking at the Canon FS100 - but as always, been looking at things that are that 'little' bit more expensive .

Like the Canons so also been tempted by the HF100.

As a beginner to all this is the FS100 adequate? or buy the best i can afford? (HF100 top of budget).

As far as editing goes only have dual core 2gb laptop so would that struggle with a full HD camcorder??

Thanks in advance.

Karl

[RenaultSport]

Hi
As you have an HD tv i'd go for the HF100.

Can you give a bit more detailed spec on your laptop?

[ObeyOne]

Hi.. the laptop is an acer aspire 5920.. dual core 1.66ghz with 2 gig ram.

Don't know much about editing any camcorder material but reading various threads on here you need quite a powerful pc for hd stuff??

Would like to go for the hd camcorder because as you say have an hd telly and thats probably where we'd view most of the recordings, just not sure if my laptop would be a stumbling block on any editing?.

Regards

Karl.

[RenaultSport]

Hi
Your laptop is a little underpowered but its not too bad. The place where it will struggle is the final encoding after you've edited it. A lot of peopl just leave it overnight though.

[ObeyOne]

Cheers RenaultSport for your quick replies.

I take it i'd notice quite a difference between these two camcorders on my tv?

Shame i've just missed out on the Canon cashback deal which ended a couple of days ago - would of made either purchase that much sweeter.

Regards

Karl

[RenaultSport]

I've only used the HF100 personally as thats the one I bought. However, to come to that decision I looked at origional samples from both on Vimeo, Video Sharing For You

I was much more impressed with the quality of the HF100 samples than the SD9. I know its not the best way of deciding, but I looked at a lot of samples on my pc and downloaded and played on my tv and on average the hf100 looked quite a bit better.

With vimeo - if you register for free you can download the origional video if you scroll down and look on the right hand side.