I am going to get the HD2 and I downloaded a couple of sample clips but can't seem to figure out how I convert them to PAL. I have Adobe Premier standard which came with my Vaio, I can import the files and in the clip preview it can play them but when I drop it into the timeline it just shows as black and a PAL render just comes out black. What do I do as I live in the UK and need PAL if I am going to share with firends/family! Any help would be greatly appreciated. Does the software that comes with the camera provide conversion?

try the Canopus ProCoder 2 or 3

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately that seems to be out of my budget, it looks to retailing at about £200-300 ($400-600). I am a student and struggling to afford the camera itself so I was hoping there might be some free or very cheap stuff out there. So far the only option I have found is converting to DV variable bit rate in windows movie maker, a DV avi 30mb/s from win mov doesn't seem to want to play on my pc (a 1gb 1.86 pentium M with 128mb graphics) which is odd as I have no problems with the original hd file. The qualiy from the windows mov maker file is alright at a stretch, I can just about see blocky colour changes in the sky on the clip I have but it is otherwise alright. At least it seems to be a PAL file that works. I am thinking this may be my only option, see if I can get Premier standard to render HD 720p files (although I am still trying to work it all out) then convert in windows movie maker for burning to DVD.

I live in a PAL region but I treat my videos, and burn my DVD's, as NTSC. I began doing this because I found that converting frame rates caused an annoying lack of smoothness to the picture - especially when panning. I got used to doing this when I had my C1. I have not changed my habits since buying my HD1a.

but doesn't that make playback on pal tvs quite bad?

I think for now I have found a solution though- convert MP4 to Intel indeo 4.4 in MPEGstreamclip, then it loads in premier standard. I can then produce decent DV or mpeg 2 files for dvd. It takes quite a long time though and the intel file is quite a lot bigger.

I might try putting my brother's vegas movie studio platinum on my laptop and see how that works.