Settings for Cyberlink Power Director 

and the Canon Vixia HF M50 camcorder

This is for me to remember, and for anyone else who bought this nice little camcorder and is using Cyberlink software to burn disks to watch.   It took me quite a bit of experimenting over the last week to arrive at these conclusions.

Camcorder Settings: Canon Vixia HF M50

First, if you are videoing mostly stillish stuff without much movement, then Standard settings on the camcorder (AVCHD at 7mbps, 1440x1080 at 30p or the MP4/7mbps/1280x720/30 P) will probably be fine.  If none of that makes sense, you will need to read the PDF for the camcorder, and read up on video formats on the web!

However, if you are a crazy hockey parent like us, you want to get fast moving kids and pucks without horrible zebra and double-image artifact on your final output!  The Canon M50, like every other digital camera I have ever seen, comes with a plethora of junk modes to make it look like you can videotape into the next millenium on the built-in 8GB memory, much less a SD card.  Just don't expect to be able to watch any movement in the resultant video without getting sea-sick at all the zebra-striping and shadow-imaging that results from less-than-best modes!

In a nutshell, if you are videotaping sports, etc, only videotape at the highest-quality settings for AVCHD which is MXP (1920x1080/60i at 24mbps), or for MP4, which is 30P (1280x720/30p).  Then you can get milky smooth movement on your final output video - if you choose the right settings in your video output program.

Video Output Settings: Cyberlink Power Director and Power Producer

First, I can't see any particular reason to use the included software that came with the camcorder.
Cyberlink PowerDirector and Power Producer offer much more customization.  But that is to be expected, as the software that comes with most cameras is usually... pretty cheap.  I installed the VideoBrowser software that came with the camera, to see what it would do, which is basically copying the SD card contents to a cryptically named directory (Import Mgr Data) in the My Documents folder instead of in the My Videos folder on my Windows7-64 computer.  Then, you have to keep drilling down through layers of junk names to find your files, which I promptly moved to a dated folder in my server Videos directory. I got Cyberlink programs with my LG USB3 Blu-Ray drive, upgraded to the newest versions for 64bit and AMD GPU support, and am pretty satisfied with them. Makes disks and DVD iso's; Also Blu-Ray folders for more copies of Blu-Ray disks, which I haven't tried yet.

Instead, I would recommend just putting the SD card in your computer, looking for the relevant directory ("Private" for AVCHD files, and DCIM for MP4 files) and moving them where you want them so they are not lost forever when you uninstall the goofy apps Canon has you install.

Then decide what you want from your video.  If all you want is a basic dump to DVD or Blu-Ray, then Power Producer will do just fine, and is easy and reliable, and does add a nice cover screen menu with one option (PLAY) to click on.

If you want to do more editing, then try Video Editor, which has timeline, etc. Both programs allow background music track to be added.

Absolutely key, is the output choices. If you are videoing sports, you will get the best output from 60p AVCHD choices, and next best from 30p.  The interlaced and 24p options stink, making you think you are watching zebras slide across the screen, often in duplicate. But if your output is he same as the original in frame size for MP4, or 60p for AVCHD, (using progressive frame encoding), then you get gorgeous video that looks the same as when you shot it, which is the best I have seen on a consumer camcorder, bar none. I have made Blu-Ray and AVCHD DVD's that look gorgeous from last weekend's games.

What I haven't Tried and Don't Need (Probably): 

WI-FI features of the Canon M50 have been pretty poorly reviewed everywhere I have seen them, and to me, seem like a waste of my phone data allowance and my time, when copying the SD card to computer is much faster by just plugging it into the computer.  Also, copying the internal 8GB by wireless would be an exercise in patience that I don't have, and hoping no errors from dropped signal, etc.  And that is if I would be patient enough to do the wireless setup everytime my router gets turned on and off, which isn't likely.

To me, until the newer post-N wireless is incorporated into cameras, wireless is just too slow for either my DSLR or for video files, both of which eat up memory like me at a burger joint...

Auto-upload to You-Tube, etc via wireless or built-in software
Yeah, I've uploaded videos of my kids without any title screen etc.  Painful to watch.  In general, not a great idea except of your kids, for adoring family to watch!

CONCLUSIONS:

I'll get a video up to YouTube when I have the time.

At first trial, using the camera in Standard Mode was a little disappointing, and similarly Cyberlink defaults, with seasickness-inducing videos coming out on my TV from hockey video that looked great on HDMI from the camcorder.

But if you choose highest quality video to start with, and highest quality output, then the digital video output is phenomenal!  I am very happy with the results of the combination of camera and software.

Let me know if any comments...