Canon Vixia HF S21 camcorder features dual SD slot, AVCHD to mpeg4 conversion

[CES 2010] Canon has upgraded its line of HD camcorders and the one that has caught our attention is the Vixia HF S21. It’s a 1080p camcorder that has a 10X optical zoom. It packs 64GB of internal flash storage, but also has two SD (SDXC) slots. SDXC cards aren’t on the market yet, but they are built to support a maximum size of 2TB. When the storage runs out on the internal storage, the camcorder will automatically switch to the SD slots – without visible interruption or artifacts! Canon has also added a “SuperRange” (zoom mode) electronic image stabilizer that helps make these zoomed shot much steadier. The camcorder records in AVCHD, but can now convert files into MPEG4, which is a friendlier format in terms of storage and compatibility (YouTube etc…). That’s an excellent feature. The conversion speed is about “real-time”, so 1mn of video will take 1mn to convert. Finally, Canon has added a touch interface that replaces the Joystick found in previous camcorders.

• 64GB of internal storage, 2 SD slots
• 1080p recording
• 1/2.6″ 8.59 Megapixel 1080p CMOS sensor
• 3.5″ 922k pixels display
• Touch and track, face detection (to keep the focus on something)
• Viewfinder (to save cut down the battery use)
• Compatible with Eye-Fi