Decide what image quality you want to use

2Your camcorder offers two levels of image quality: high-definition (HD) video and standard-definition (SD) video. Apart from a significant difference in quality, this selection will also affect on what DVD players you can play back your finalized* disc (the disc's compatibility). Read carefully and select the image quality that best fits your needs.

Please note that the disc's quality can only be changed when initializing the disc. Therefore, with DVD-R and DVD-R DL discs you can select the disc's quality only once and it cannot be changed later on. With DVD-RW discs, you can initialize the disc and change the quality but doing

so will delete all the recordings on the disc.

HD Quality

High definition allows you to record video of

 

unparalleled high quality on regular mini DVD discs

 

using AVCHD compression. HD video is composed of

 

1,080 horizontal lines – that is more than twice the

 

number of horizontal lines and approximately 4 times

 

the number of pixels in standard-definition TV

 

broadcasts – resulting in eye-catching colors and

 

richly detailed video recordings.

1,080 lines

Discs recorded in HD quality can be played back only

with AVCHD-compatible DVD players. Do not insert a disc recorded in HD quality into a DVD player that is not compatible with AVCHD specifications as you may not be able to eject the disc.

"Full HD 1080" refers to Canon camcorders compliant with high- definition (HD) video composed of 1,080 vertical pixels (scanning lines).

SD Quality

Standard definition allows you to record video in DVD-VIDEO mode using MPEG-2 compression. This is the same standard used in regular movie DVD discs ensuring that, after finalizing* it, you can play back the disc you recorded on most DVD players. When you use DVD discs that cannot be reused (DVD-R or DVD-R DL), the disc can be recorded only in VIDEO mode.

DVD-RW discs, on the other hand, can be recorded using either one of two specifications: VIDEO mode or VR mode. Refer to Disc specifications on DVD-RWs

( 7).

*Disc finalization is the processing of the free space (the unrecorded area) on the disc in

order to make it playable on external DVD devices ( 68). To finalize a DVD-R DL disc, the camcorder has to process both layers. Therefore, and depending on the amount of free space on the disc, this process may be lengthy.

6