Thanks, the colour looks slightly purple on the Canon whereas it's more natural on the Sony. Cheers

Sharpness is about the same but the Sony seems ot have better coloring and slightly better white balance. With some tweaking, you can make the Canon look as good I think. Still playing with it.

The greens are better in the Sony, but the sky is more nice in the Canon. And the first shots in the beach, the Canon shows better colors.

Great comparison video. Thanks for putting it together. It's strange though how I don't see as much of a differnce in color from one to the other as I thought there was. I've seen more videos where I thought the colors didn't look so good in Canon HF100 videos than I've seen on Sony SR and CX12 vids. I just can't decide between the two. Sony's got some great features, but Canon seems to have the focus and the sharpness down.

Thanks for the comparison video... I ended up choosing the HF100 after many, many years with Sony... I got tired of the proprietary memory. I'm just waiting to unbox my camera now.

@Obiwanhavanese - seriously, who cares about memory formats? I've got xD in my Fuji camera, micro M2 in my phone, SD in my GPS, and MemoryStick Duo in my Sony.

If that's why you switched from Sony cams, not a good reason to switch imo.

I mean, switch because of color, features, focus, cost, reliablity, etc, but not because of memory type. Why do you care, honestly?

@dibbers

the proprietary format makes for more expensive memory cards. so in effect it is cost...

plus it's way more convenient to have a bunch of the same media around for when you end up ditching one camera and going with another. sooner or later you're going to retire it, and being able to pop an SD card into another camera or mp3 player or whatever is nice.

i debated for months on if i should go with the SR12 or the HF10 (now the HF11 since it's out) and I've finally settled on the Canons due to both the format (i have plenty of sony stuff... i'm sick of paying out the nose for various memory sticks... not that I'd really have to deal with that with the SR12) and I've had two professional videographers (one shoots for various Discovery channel shows) tell me that the color tends to be slightly more accurate on the Canons.

Anyways... back to the point... unless you don't plan on taking your flash memory with you from product to product, it's a very relevant concern to want the same media storage in as many devices as possible, IMO.

Sorry for being kinda long winded...

In my opinion the motion test seems to be more hacky on Canon

Really interesting comparison! I tend to say the white balance and motion are looking better on the Sony.
Is there a difference in the wide-angle fov between the cams?

AVCHD compression really limits your panning and tilting, not smooth at all once you look closely. Increasing the shutter speed tends to help but still not perfect... To my eyes the color of the Canon blows away the sony, it seems to capture colors much more vividly and accurately. The sony does have an enhanced contrast which does not equal "better sharpness" in my opinion. I do like the Sony but in this comparison the Canon wins. And these are consumer cameras, they are tweaked to for the average Joe so the images "pop". If you want better image quality and control over your settings you may have to spend a little more money. :-)

@stephen alberts

per the vimeo faq: "Please note that Vimeo converts all HD videos up to 24 frames per second for optimum playback performance." ...you can't make a judgement about the motion capabilities of either these cameras or the avchd codec, based on this video clip.

the vimeo 24fps pretty much wrecks all motion shots.

this is why you should log in and download the original file...see down on the right side...

the canon seems to be a bit better in motion...

By the way...I think I gonna buy the Canon because of the 25p Mode (or 24p, different in each country). Because of this, the Canon should have better low light Quality... 1/25s vs 1/50s per frame.

Just the green colour looks a bit more natural to me with the sony...

The Sony is able to save 7MP still pictures...

But: Here in Switzerland: THe SOny ist 1030.- vs Canon 930.- CHF and the memory card from sony is double the price of a SDHC if you wanna buy a 16GB

The Canon shoots at 17MB/s. The Sony at 16MB/s so neither are great at motion. AVCHD is still early as a standard. Several things have to happen to improve motion. 1) The compression algorithm needs to be more efficient. 2) We need to reach 24 MB/s. The Canon HF11 already does 24 MB/s but the compression probably still needs to be improved to take full advantage of it. 3) Sensors will need to be improved and be larger. Hopefully the 2009-2010 Canon and Sony ACVHD cams will do all this.

More efficient..yes. Because 24Mb/s must not be better, as I red in a Test about the HG20/21 today.
The funny thing is, the HF100/10 has less "noise" then the new models (esp. in low light...) So a bigger CMOS sensor would be nice.

What could bring as a better Motion-Quality would be 50p/60p. I mean 50/60i is very "smoth" but ist could be sharper with progressiv frames.
Thanks SF, that I can watch "HD Suisse" in 720p50 :D

The only Cam I know, that is able to produce 720p50/60, ist the Sanyo HD1010. But there the stabilizer is rubbish...as far as I know...

I wonder why Canon or Sony do not offer a 720p Mode???

I really dont know what to do...waiting for the Canon HF200 or buying the HF100...or should I take a TG1 till the BIG Cams support 1080p50?

Hope you understand my English :P
Good night!

well... I gonna buy the HF100. Now its cheaper then the TG1 :D

(Do you know when we can expect new Models? This Year or next springtime?)

i just got a hf11. so far i am not really impressed. i still have my old cheap panasonic nv-gs 75 dv cam. and for some reasons i like the results better in some situations. the nv-gs 75 does not suffer from all this strange digital artifacts when filming motions. the over all quailty of the hf11 is of course much better, but only when "nothing" happens in the picture. as soon as i pan it seems that the hf11 is not ready for prime time yet. i could be wrong, but that are my findings ...

Take a look here, who d'like to buy one of these cameras:
videozona.ru/video_tests/cx12-hf10-sd100/
(It is in russian, but just scroll down to see test results)
Sony got the best colors, Canon has more sharpness, Sony have 5.1 audio recording, but Canon has progressive video mode record! And Sony wins in the matrix size (1/3.13” CMOS, 5.66 (3.81 HD) - against 1/3.2” CMOS, 3.31 (2.07HD) of Canon).
Anyways, they are realy similar cameras...

But remember, that you'll have to pay more with Sony, for my counts, from 50 to 100 Euros more, to have the same accessories (camera+16gb sd cards+extra battery).

Its realy strange, but from your comparison, seems that Canon get best colors................. :(((

So i dont know anymore, which one i have to buy! :(((
1 week of searching and testings..... Im tired=)

In first test, Sony seems to be more darking....
I cant see green mountains, which are cleary visible in Canon...

I perfer the color on the Canon to the Sony, which is a really good thing I suppose since I just bought a Vixia HF10! I just did some test shots the the default lower resolution and was blown away but the detail. I'm not a Sony man myself, but those who perfer it, go for it. I've seen some reviews of the cameras and the critics seem to perfer the Canon HiDef line to the Sony. Check them out on YouTube.

i have had a trusty sony dv. but i am going for the canon because of the memory format. i hate having to buy sony memory, limits you.

Canon Wins, hands down. Color, clarity, and motion testing. Colors are much richer and cleaner with the Canon.

the Canon completely wins, colors are so much better. But yeah, Sony has awesome features like that surround sound recording which makes it a tough choice. You can hear the difference in the video

I have the Canon HF100 and whilst I'm far from disappointed I'm still having some difficulty getting the quality I desire especially for Chroma Keying as the Blue Screen I own comes out the wrong colour but that's probably down to me and not getting the optimum WB which I'm trying to configure.

I can't speak for the Sony but from your test both seem pretty good all round camcorders. The motion test for me showed the Canon as being far less jerky than the Sony but it has already been stated that Vimeo messes up motion.

So for me this test shows that it's all down to personal taste rather than one being better than the other - Thanks for the comparison. I love my Canon HF100 btw but I need to do many more tests to get it just right.