Battery LED’s are an adequate substitute for a chip in a camcorder battery
I am aware of the intelligent battery system that Canon and Sony have deployed on their latest camcorders. I just bought a Canon Vixia HF11 HD camcorder and wanted to purchase their high capacity BP-827 battery for it, but no one has it in stock. One vendor told me that Canon has a problem with the chip in their intelligent batteries and has had to cease production until they can fix the problem. Because of this problem I had to buy several non Canon batteries. I got some with LED's in the battery that tell you the approximate state of charge when you press a button on the battery. With that feature built in the intelligent system is not necessary. I also bought a Canon battery charger, which at this point was a waste of money since it will not recharge any non Canon battery. Every time I turn the camcorder on with a non Canon battery installed I get a warning message, but there is no problem with anything, so why do I need a warning? Canon sells a dedicated DVD burner for use with this camcorder which connects via USB. Every time I connected the camcorder to my computer via USB I was asked if I'm connecting to the DVD burner or a PC. There's a menu option to have the camcorder always assume you are connecting to a PC if you don't own the Canon DVD burner. Canon should provide a menu option to eliminate the warnings concerning batteries too since these are nothing more than a nuisance. I am disappointed that Consumer Reports does not report these issues and put pressure on the manufacturers to stop this nonsense. I'm also surprised these anticompetitive practices are legal.
Just because there are LEDs in the battery does not mean that the battery has an chip in it at all. In fact, the LEDs are not connected at all to any circuit which might have controlled the chip. As such, the batteries with LED charge state lights on it behaves exactly the same as a battery with no chip or LEDs at all. If a salesperson told you that a battery with LEDs eliminates the need for an intelligent battery, he or she is definitely incorrect. That person is more likely to be a teenager or other inexperienced person who knows little to nothing about the different kinds of rechargeable camcorder batteries. The tough economic times have forced electronics stores and other retailers to rely largely or entirely on untrained, inexperienced staff who knows little to nothing about the products that they sell and get paid barely the minimum wage just for their work. (There are fewer and fewer knowledgable people working in those retailers because they all want a lot more money than what the companies are willing to pay them.) After all, the salespeople are there just to make more money for the company they work for - even if they leave the customer completely dissatisfied or even downright angry. (In other words, they work only for the company's bottom line.)And I would like to say that both Canon and Sony should have found a way to prevent incompatible batteries from being fully seated into the battery compartments of their newer camcorders without affecting the backwards compatibility of newer batteries in older camcorders. Perhaps they should have taken a clue from the Nikon DSLRs.By the way, the current Sony H batteries actually have two smart chips inside them: one (ActiFORCE) for the newer camcorders, the other (InfoLITHIUM) for backwards compatibility with older P battery camcorders. The older P batteries have only the InfoLITHIUM smart chip; thus, they won't work in a camcorder which requires the ActiFORCE smart chip to work.
I was the one that decided that the camcorder battery LED's were an adequate substitute for a chip in a battery. All the chip does is interpret the battery's state of charge as minutes of remaining battery life. The LED's do the same thing only with less accuracy, but for the difference in price that's fine with me. You call batteries without a chip incompatible. The requirement for the battery is a 7.2 volt output at so many milliampere hours per charge. The chip adds nothing to the battery's functionality. I own a Sony camcorder with an Info lithium battery, which displays time remaining during use. What added functions does ActiFORCE provide? The batteries I purchased with the LED's are rated at 7.2 volts, 3400 MAH and cost $52 each. They run the camcorder for three hours straight. the Canon BP-827, which I would have bought if it were available, is only rated at about 2700 MAH and costs over three times the price. What is gained by using the Canon battery? As I said previously, Consumer Reports should rate equipment which attempts to force use of the manufacturer's accessories only for no good reason as unacceptable.