Canon Vixia HF M31 - full HD video 1 - A bird. A lizard doing push ups.

May 31, 2010.

I just got this HD camcorder yesterday. The Canon Vixia HF M31. It's an awesome HD camcorder!

This is some footage I did today with it. I'm still new at using this camcorder. I think I had settings like White Balance on Auto for this footage. It was done in FXP 17Mbps mode. Records in full 1080 HD. There is one higher mode at 24Mbps.

I feel that I got a little too much sunlight in this footage. That is apparent on the root of the bird house. It looks over exposed. Kinda saturated too much with white. Or maybe the roof had a bit of a reflective surface.

Some sources of information like the Studio 12 booklet define 1080i as 1440x1080. I put the 3 raw footage clips together, cutting a bit of excess out, and made the video as MPEG-2 with the Preset option HD 1080i. This makes it at 1920x1080, not 1440x1080. So this video is true full HD at 1920x1080. To avoid confusion with the second title screen.

I used Pinnacle Studio 12 to do this. I may consider a program like Sony Vegas.

The third clip of three is a close up of a door. I was holding the camcorder looking at function settings or something and saw the camcorder auto focusing on that. I was impressed with the detail and decided to record a little bit of that.

I know this is a lot to read. But I want to add that the really slow zoom on the bird house was not an editing effect in Studio 12. It was the actual zoom on the camcorder. You can adjust the speed of zooming in and out. I held the zoom switch very lightly for a slow zoom in.

The bird chirps you hear are real. I didn't dub any sounds or boost any audio. I used the built in mic with factory/auto settings.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• canon
• vixia
• hf
• m30
• m300
• m31
• s11
• r11
• s200
• r100
• hd
• high
• def
• definition
• 1080
• 1080p
• 1080i
• 720
• 720p
• 30fps
• blu-ray
• dvd
• video
• camcorder
• camera
• flash
• memory
• internal
• hard
• drive
• 32gb
• gb
• gigabyte
• gig
• gigs
• dual
• 10x
• 15x
• optical
• zoom
• stabilizer
• avchd
• hdmi
• cmos
• hfm31
• sd
• sdhc
• instant
• af
• full

[mlsprovideos]

I love your video. Video is video and i love my Ultra HD Flip. I like my Canon M31 also. The real professional result is the editing program. I use Pinnacle 14 Ultimate and can format in ANY thing I want. Too high and it is a waste for YouTube. You can only do so much with the YouTube limits at the moment.

[orangewitness]

@mlsprovideos True. Last time I checked, the highest bitrate for HD YouTube videos is 5Mbps. I always upload videos that are 17 or 24 Mbps and the YouTube conversion is always lesser quality than the original video file. I still like to upload videos so people can see the result if they were to have YouTube video uploading as part of their hobby.

[alyssac11]

this is amazingg. just wondering what you used to convert and what you converted to cause i got this camcorder and this looks awesome.

[orangewitness]

@alyssac11

I found out that youtube's 1080p videos are 5 Mbps bitrate. The camcorder captures in a much higher setting. This video I think was in 17Mps. The original camcorder videos will always be much better. But the YouTube conversion still does look really nice.

I used the Studio 12 program from Pinnacle to edit videos and convert them to an MPEG-2 format. It's a program I happen to have. It came with a device I used to feed video from a VHS tape player into my notebook computer.

[captainmps]

I too have this camcorder and I am thrilled with it. I am currently filming everything in MXP mode, and when I upload them to youtube, I only get 720p, not 1080p. I am using iMovie on my mac to convert. Is there any chance you could help?

[orangewitness]

@captainmps I've never used iMovie before. But the first thing I'd look at is the format of the file you create during conversion. To make sure the resolution is 1920 x 1080.

[thefrickenfilmcritic]

Lizard doing push ups equals awesome

[orangewitness]

@adobekid1 It's a really good camcorder. I like the option to use an external mic. I haven't used one yet but I may get a direct sound feed from the sound board when my friends band is performing. The internal mic is the best I've used on a camcorder.

The YouTube videos showing footage from this camcorder look great. It is of course a YouTube conversion. The footage directly from the camcorder looks a lot better and clearer. You can use an HDMI cable and plasma screen to see how good it is.

[adobekid1]

I have seen all of your videos and the video quality seems excellent! I have ordered one. I had to return the highly rated Samsumg MX-10 because of really poor video even though the members that posted the video thought the quality was great. They need to see your video! Thanks, you helped me make my decision.. I have self help videos on Youtube too. adobekid1

[chuckv5150]

Wow! Crystal clear. That is nice.