Canon Legria HF20

Audio Features (5.75)

The Canon HF20 covers the most important audio feature for compact camcorders—a 1/8-inch mini microphone input. The mic input is well placed on the back of the camcorder, although its plastic port cover is a bit obtrusive for connecting lots of cables. Other audio features on the camcorder include a headphone jack (shared with the AV port), audio level control and display, microphone attenuator, and wind screen. This is a rather hefty set of audio controls and it is more than most users will ever need. The audio level control is particularly useful, although Canon doesn't include any hard numbers with the control. This means you don't know how much you're raising or lowering the audio levels in actual decibels, but maybe you don't really ever need this kind of information on a consumer camcorder.

The audio level control

The HF20 also has a hot accessory shoe that can be used to connect external microphones. Keep in mind, however, that the shoe is Canon's proprietary mini design, which means it'll only work with specific products. All the camcorders we've used as comparisons throughout this review have some interesting audio features. The Sanyo VPC-HD2000 offers external microphone audio control as well as headphone and mic jacks. The Panasonic HDC-HS20, while not including mic or headphone jacks, has the most extensive audio level control system of the bunch. The Canon HF S100 has essentially identically audio controls to the HF20.

The hot accessory shoe only fits Canon products.

The built-in microphone

Other Features (4.5)

The HF20 has a number of extra features, most of which you'll find on Canon's entire HD line-up.

Video Snapshot
Video Snapshot is a gimmicky new feature on the HF20 that isn't all that useful. The setting, which is activated by pressing the Video Snap button inside the LCD cavity, allows you to take video clips of exactly 4-seconds in length. Once you push the record button, a blue line will make its way around the edge of the LCD screen. Once the line makes it all the way around the screen, the camcorder will automatically stop recording—giving you a 4-second clip of video. This can be useful if you want to collect a series of, dare we say it, 'video snapshots'or clips that all have the same 4-second length.

The prominent Video Snap button looks more important than it actually is.

Canon makes a big deal about being able to add background music to your video snap clips in playback mode. Sound interesting? Well, you can actually add music in playback mode to any clip you've recorded with the HF20. This means you don't have to use the video snap feature if you want to make a little in-camera music video of your recent vacation.

Video Light
You turn on the video light by using the joystick guide menu. The light on the HF20 is tiny, so don't expect it to provide all that much illumination. It will still help you out when you're filming in the dark, however, although your subject shouldn't be farther than a few feet away to get good results. Also, based on the HF20's poor low light performance, it's a darned good thing Canon included a built-in video light on this model.

Digital Effects
Ah, digital effects. How wonderfully exciting they can be at first and how quickly we tire of them. Canon keeps things simple here, it offers a fader, wipe, black & white, and art on the HF20.

Quick Start
Quick start is one of those features that sounds good, but doesn't really do much of anything. With the setting engaged the HF20 goes into standby mode when you close the LCD screen rather than powering down. Now, when you open the LCD, the camcorder immediately turns on and is ready to record (it still takes about 1 second for the LCD to start-up). The thing is, the camcorder only takes about 2 seconds to boot up from a powered-down state. This means quick start mode only saves you around 1 second of time, while still draining your battery with the camcorder in standby.

Pre-Record
Here's an interesting new feature. When using pre-record, the HF20 continually stores three seconds of footage in the camcorder's buffer memory. This means, as soon as you press the record button you've already recorded three seconds of video. Pre-record is a good feature to have if you're trying to capture lots of action or if you really don't want to miss a single magical moment of your life—the setting does eat up battery power, however, so you might want to invest in some spares if you plan on using the feature a lot.