The videos you shoot are simply awesome. I played video from the camera to a Phillips 42" 1080P LCD TV and picture is unbelievable. Very crisp, clear and bright colors. It is equal to or possibly a bit better than HD programming over the air. The pictures shot in the still mode are also very good and I was impressed. Pictures do look like they were shot from a nice digital camera and not from a video camera. Now pictures shot while recording video, have a bit more noise and not as crisp, but are still good. The flash memory is great. Instant access, no moving parts, which should allow this camera to be trouble-free for many years. Hey, it's a Canon!A nice feature is that it has a built-in 1.7X digital tele-converter which does not affect video quality. With the small optical zoom of 10X, the digital tele-converter does give the zooom a little more oomph.OK, you know it had to come....here are the bad points I found. Besides for battery life, all are very minor:The manual is big and bulky. If you must include other languages besides English, that's fine if you need to. But do it with different manuals. To include 3 languages in one book, makes for a quite a thick and cumberson manual for no real reason.The controls are a bit of a challenge to master for me and the menu takes a little getting used to, but this camera has many capabilities and some nice manual features.The 10x zoom is a bit small in my opinion, but the tele-converter helps offset this a little.The worst thing about this camera and what others are also saying, is the mediocre battery life. Expect to pay for another battery, probably one with at least double the juice of the one that is packaged with this camera. Remember, the format is AVCHD and software that can use this format is still limited, but there are more coming out all the time. Expect to pay another $100 or so for these although Amazon has some great deals if you keep watch. The software included with the HF S10 works, but it's nothing real special. Also, make sure your computer requirements are above the minimum for trouble free viewing/editing. I built my computer with an Intel Quad Core 9650, 8GB 1066mhz RAM and a GTX 260 PCI-E Video card with 896MB RAM and I have absolutely no problem of a slowdown or anything else. Also make sure you have plenty of Hard Drive space as AVCHD uses alot of space. As far as SDHC card, I would advise class 6 or higher. Class 4 will work, but longer write/read times. I learned the hard that not all memory card readers will read SDHC or possibly not over an 8gb card even though you may have an SD slot and it will read other SD cards. Overall, this is an awesome camera and I have only had it a few days and maybe once I learn the features and how to have it sip the battery life (if it can), I will like it that much better. If you are looking for a great HD Video camera that has a great picture and sound, you need not look further. I have read the reviews of many different cameras and played with a few and have no regrets in getting this one.ADDITIONAL: I have now had this camera for awhile and the only changes I'd make to my above statement is that battery life is better now that I concentrate on shooting photos only or video only. I was earlier shooting both videos and photos, switching back and forth as well as playing back what was shot. This used the battery up quite quickly. In concentrating in shooting only and not as much playback, battery life is much better. Also, I highly recommend buying the the next size up battery pack (BP-819) as it seems to last twice as long and Amazon has the best deal on it hands down.Buy Canon VIXIA HF S10 Lowest Price, Order Now! [Click Here!]
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