I've always been a Sony guy when it comes to video, but I use Canon for my stills. I decided to try the Canon this time for video and I'm more than satisfied. The video quality is very sharp and detailed, and the auto white balance helps capture some great footage when recording with auto on. I also messed with manual white balance, focus, and shooting modes. All worked as expected. There are a couple things that this model does not have that would be nice (i.e. infrared night shooting, firewire), but my main interests in my new camera were picture quality. I didn't bother installing the editing software as I use Adobe and Pinnacle software for that. If you're looking to capture some stunning detailed video, I would recommend this camera. 60 GIGs of HD space is a nice perk as well. Thanks Amazon for the quick shipping. Just in time to get some HD video of my new 8 week old german shepherd pup!

I have owned the HG20 for one week and am amazed with the clarity of the HD picture especially in low-light conditions. Definitely need a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable for playback to LCD TV's. Very happy with the performance. Autofocus is very smooth. Battery life is limited but once you have the extra battery, there's no problem....

You can not base your review of the camera only on the editing software that comes with the camera. All HD camera's come with just basic editing software which do not take advantage of hardware.

I purchased this camera 2 weeks ago, connect directly to my HD 65" and the picture is incredible. I use Vegas Pro and the editing is great, burn to DVD DL with Blue Ray format and the play back is just as great.

Great camera for the price. I do have one question. What was included within the box when you recieved your camera?

Recently got the HG20. Am fairly pleased with the perform of the camera, so all is good there. Unfortunately, I'm not so happy with the editing software. It's incredibly basic, and has a lot of issues.

Initially I was having some issues with this software using my laptop (which I discovered is a tad under spec with having only a Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2GHz), so I installed it on a friend's new computer which is over spec'd with a Quad CPU processor and more than enough memory. The software requires at least a Core 2 Duo @ 2.13GHz. Thankfully, his system solved most of the blips I was originally seeing on my laptop, however, there were still many small pauses in the small editing screen playback feature. For example, if I put two different clips together, the playback feature worked fine up until it reached the second clip, after which the CPU went from being ~50% busy to 100% busy, which created many small pauses in the movie as the sound continues. When adding a transition between clips (such as a Fade into the second clip), or if I added words (Titler) to one of the clips, the CPU again jumped from ~50% to 100% busy and then many small pauses were seen. If you can live with this, the final saved version comes out fine once saved and created, but its not a nice program for making a movie requiring precision. To put this in more perspective, I've been using Windows Movie Maker for the past few months using the film footage from my digital camera, which I would say is a fairly basic program. However, Windows Movie Maker has a lot more options and freedom as compared to the HG20 software, called ImageMixer 3. What I've initially noticed that I'm not liking is that I cannot overlap text, and there's no 90-degree rotation option (although you may not want to do this with widescreen shots), and there's no features such as slowing or speeding up your footage. As a small example, Windows movie maker allows text that is fading away to be overlapped with text that is fading in so that you have a very quick transition between text. With ImageMixer 3, you have to wait for your first set of text completely fade away before you can have new set of text begin to fade in.

In summary, the very basic Windows Movie Maker is a much better editing software than the ImageMixer software designed for the HG20, which comes with a lot of pausing even with a sytem that has specs better than is required. If you buy this camera, which is good, you should consider trying to find something else to edit your movies with.

Great camera. The biggest flaw is not the 60 gb drive which is bigger than you will ever need, or the menu interface which is easy, intuitive and user friendly, the biggest flaw is the lack of the view finder on this camera. Big deal you say, its got a modern screen instead of a view finder, but that modern screen in really bright sunlight kinda washes out (like all those screens do) and might lead you to adjust the settings or force you to trust your autoexposure when you are taking those priceless outdoor shots. The hg 21 has the eye piece viewfinder which is a reliable indicator of what you are shooting in those conditions, but for the extra 300 USDs it's hard to justify. The AF is super in this camera, no distiguishable periods "out of focus" as you rapidly zoom in and out. Also the head set or yellow AV jack, is a must have. Ever record tons of footage and find out the only thing you can hear is the wind buffetting your microphone? Record wearing regular ipod type headphones and you don't have to review the footage to find out if you have the shot. Don't get a camcorder without that or the mic input which this camera has. Terrific simultaneous video record and still photo to the regular full size SD card, cool, works great. Requires class 4 SD card, the speedy type. I think the HG21 with the 120 gb has tons of storage, but it's overkill and takes longer to do a full hard drive clean than the 60gb hg20, but both have a quick clean function for the hard drive. Finally don't expect much from the packaged software if you really want to edit. Corel has pro x2 which works great for avchd. Last thing is the battery. It charges when the camera is pugged in and it works great. I was made to believe that this camera is useless without an external charger and tons of extra batteries, which is not true, 95 min is good. Or just stay plugged to the wall. As a guy who typically struggles with technology, I hope all my "research" helps some one else and as the owner of the hg20 this camera delivers and is simple for anyone to use.