just bought DR-HD100 and I am wondering what setting gives a better quality recording? .m2t or quicktime hd? Thanks

The quality is exactly the same. Use quicktime if you are posting in FCP, m2t for everything else.
m2t will also work with FCP when the clips are run through Clipwrap.

Thanks for the info. I was browsing through the book and the volumes per minute in Quicktime and .m2t files were a bit different, hence my question.

The difference in file size is due to the audio being uncompressed 16-bit 48Khz in Quicktime format. The source is still the same coming from the camera (the DR-HD100 does the work of uncompressing the audio) so there is no quality difference.

I would beg to differ here. The Quicktime .mov setting is totally unusable if you plan on recording audio to the camera (which I'm sure 80% of us do.) You will find noise in the -45dB range that sounds like a ground hum. It doesn't exist on tape or in the m2t stream. This has been documented in several posts.

So go and get Clip Wrap to use the m2t setting.

jpb

Thanks for the info again. I was thinking about recording in .m2t and using clip wrap because of 4GB limitation of file size.

I would beg to differ here. The Quicktime .mov setting is totally unusable if you plan on recording audio to the camera (which I'm sure 80% of us do.) You will find noise in the -45dB range that sounds like a ground hum. It doesn't exist on tape or in the m2t stream. This has been documented in several posts.

So go and get Clip Wrap to use the m2t setting.

jpb
John-Paul, sadly I must agree. I was doing some test shots while setting up my unit and Quicktime HD setting produced a quite loud high pitch humming, much worst than any tape noise! I did download a tryout version of Clipwrap- neat little app, so I am going to purchase it in a day or so.
The question I have is now about the workflow- I need to turn the the footage into ProRes. I am simply applying to many filters for parts of it to use HDV. How do I turn Quicktime HD into ProRes, as I can't use log and transfer? Thanks- Robert

I don't use ProRes, but as I understand it, merely dropping your clips into a ProRes SEQUENCE takes care of it.