Canon HR10 Instruction Manual page 6

Decide what image quality you want to use
Your camcorder offers two levels of image quality: high-definition (HD)
video and standard-definition (SD) video. Apart from a significant
difference in quality, this selection will also affect on what DVD players you
can play back your finalized _ disc (the disc's compatibility). Read carefully
and select the image quality that best fits your needs.
Please note that the disc's quality can only be changed when initializing
the disc. Therefore, with DVD-R and DVD-R DL discs you can select the
disc's quality only once and it cannot be changed later on. With
DVD-RW discs, you can initialize the disc and change the quality but doing
so will delete all the recordings on the disc.
HD Quality
High definition allows you to record video of
unparalleled high quality on regular mini DVD discs
using AVCHD compression. HD video is composed of
1,080 horizontal lines - that is more than twice the
number of horizontal lines and approximately 4 times
the number of pixels in standard-definition TV
broadcasts - resulting in eye-catching colors and
richly detailed video recordings. 1,080 lines
Discs recorded in HD quality can be played back only
with AVCHD-compatible DVD players. Do not insert a disc recorded in HD quality into a
DVD player that is not compatible with AVCHD specifications as you may not be able
to eject the disc.
/10_ 0 ] "Full HD 1080" refers to Canon camcorders compliant with high-
definition (HD) video composed of 1,080 vertical pixels (scanning lines).
SD Quality
Standard definition allows you to record video in DVD-VIDEO mode using MPEG-2
compression. This is the same standard used in regular movie DVD discs ensuring
that, after finalizing* it, you can play back the disc you recorded on most DVD players.
When you use DVD discs that cannot be reused (DVD-R or DVD-R DL), the disc can
be recorded only in VIDEO mode.
DVD-RW discs, on the other hand, can be recorded using either one of two
specifications: VIDEO mode or VR mode. Refer to Disc specifications on DVD-RWs
(Q3 7).
* Disc finalization is the processing of the free space (the unrecorded area) on the disc in
order to make it playable on external DVD devices (E_J 68). To finalize a DVD-R DL disc,
the camcorder has to process both layers. Therefore, and depending on the amount of
free space on the disc, this process may be lengthy.