Sony HDRSR12 10.2MP 120GB High Definition Hard Drive

Great Camera!!! HD Quality is great. Yipee, no tapes!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a wonderful camera. You can shoot and shoot and shoot with no tapes. Review your clips with a visual thumbnail index. Lots of options to customize settings via menus. Touch screen interface works well.

Picture quality is fabulous. As stated in other reviews, 3rd party software is still catching up with this format. The newest Adobe suite, CS4, can now ingest these files. However, it is very slow to process this format. You can use other 3rd party software to convert the files from AVCHD to avi or mpeg2 and get better results, but it is a bit of a drag. This should resolve itself over time.

Overall, though, well worth the trouble converting for the freedom of tapeless operations and HD clarity.

Great Camera With Excellent Features
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
We bought this camera to augment a Cannon GL-2 when shooting in the field. We edit the video in Sony Vegas Pro 8 (Vista) and Final Cut Pro (Mac) and have had no problems. The video quality is excellent and the menus are very easy to use. The “easy mode” on the camera works as advertised. The focus when zooming is good and keeps up well. Battery life is good but a longer life one would be beneficial. The hard drive is very nice and we can shoot several hours without having to worry about keeping up with tapes (handy for outdoors). The microphone and zoom feature of the mic is excellent but it will pickup wind noise outside if there is a strong breeze. There are several options that can help with this (microphone input to use a hand held or lapel mic or wireless options using either the microphone jack or the accessory adapter on the top of the camera). I would definitely buy this camera again and if you watch the prices for a while you will get a good deal.

Expected More. But still worth the price.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Expected More. But still worth the price.

-Low light picture quality: vey grainy – pointless to shoot in low-light, must use a light, or the night shot.

I am very happy that sony continues to incorporate the Nite Shot feature in to their cameras. This has been a sony staple almost since they started their Handycam line. Sony is the only one who that I know of that still has this as a standard feature. I think Samsung had it on a couple cameras. It seems features get taken away as time goes on, but I’m glad Sony decide to keep this great feature. Hint: Record Night Shot in B&W for a much better pic quality.

Autofocus: struggles to find a focus point and stay there – very irritating. I’ve tried changing all kinds of settings to rectify – it still has this problem. Isn’t that the point of face recognition – to focus on the subject? Doesn’t work on my camera. The solution is to use manual focus (or a lot of unnecessary editing, which makes the video cut in an out too much on one scene! And very time consuming). But to use manual focus, you have to change the setting via the touchscreen menu to dedicate the ONE KNOB on the front of the camera for focusing. But I like to use the knob for white balance control – too bad, it can only be used for one function at a time. And if you want to adjust white balance (or ANY other setting for that matter (well, not focusing)) you must do it via the touchscreen menu. Really? I have to bump my camera several times while recording to change something? Yes that’s right you do. Then you can’t see the image b/c the screen is covered with it’s menu options! Does nobody see how ridiculous this is?!?!

This brings me to:

Lack of easy to use controls – very cumbersome to stumble through multiple menu levels to change simple settings while recording.

In case you haven’t picked up on it, I’m not a fan of the touchscreen. But it’s not just sony, ALL consumer grade cameras are like this. Yeah it’s neat for about the first five minutes, but you get over this “novelty” really quick. Maybe it would be okay for post-recording or playback functions. Trying to change settings while recording is just a joke. Even if it’s on a tripod, the camera shakes all over the place. I don’t even try to change anything anymore while recording – very disappointed in this. I’ve been relegated to the “easy” button. The easy button works pretty good, but not always how I want.

I had a camcorder in the early 90′s. Big ‘ol thing that recorded on VHS tapes. That camera had more functionality than this one that was made 20 years later by the biggest and supposedly most innovative electronics company. Why, you ask? Because my 90′s camcorder had BUTTONS AND KNOBS. Some like the lack of knobs and buttons – understandable. But it would be nice if there was a consumer priced camcorder that had buttons and knobs for those who like more control

The only way to get buttons and knobs is to buy a $12,000+ professional grade camera. You don’t see touch screens on those, it’s buttons and knobs.

Another function that most consumer camcorders now lack is the viewfinder. That is one reason I decided on this camera – it is one of the few with a viewfinder. However, my last camcorder (not 90′s) had a telescopic viewfinder. I used this a lot. This one does not have a telescopic viewfinder. Not sure why features like this are being removed as time goes on.

Picture quality in good lighting (when focused) is phenomenal. 5+ stars for this.

Audio quality is top notch. 5 stars for this.

The view screen (/touchscreen!) gives an incredible picture during recording and playback. 5 stars for this.

Supplied recording software. I use Vegas 8.1 for my editing. But for grins I thought I would just see what “picture motion browser” could do. It doesn’t. Never got it to work on my brand new powerful PC. Froze up every time I tried to use it. FYI Vegas 8.1 works great, but it has a high learning curve. Pinnacle works good too, much better for the less-technically inclined user.

Hint for home movies: Edit, edit edit! Don’t just burn your vidz straight to DVD/Blu-ray. Nobody wants to watch 20 minutes of an unedited birthday party! Or you on the beach over and over and over. You will get much more from your vidz if you take the time to learn the software (pinnacle is great for newcomers) and edit your movies to make them enjoyable – get rid of all the jittering and out of focus shots, and the 10 minutes of the same thing. Throw in some still shots and pan across them. You can make some great quality movies with the tools available to anyone these days. Take advantage of it!

A note on computing. Unless you have at minimum a fast dual-core processor with a ton of ram, and a large hard drive, you will be frustrated. Plan on adding another 2K to the cost of this camera for a new computer. My computer is quad core 64 bit with 8 gigs of ram, powerful Nvidia Graphics cards (SLI), a 1.5 TB HD, running vista x64. Even with that, there is still some (very little) stuttering when editing in Vegas 8.1 Also, you will want a Blu-Ray burner drive, and Blu-ray discs for your finished videos – more cost. You must burn your videos to Blu-Ray in Hi-Def. If you are only going to downgrade the video to standard quality and burn to DVD, then you are wasting your money on this camera to shoot in Hi-Def. Then of course you are going to want a monitor capable of view 1920 x 1080 HD, add another 400 minimum. Seems nothing is easy these days.

However, with all that said, you can play your videos straight from the camera directly to any TV – Standard or Hi-Def.

In summary, I’m very glad I purchased the camera – it really is a good buy. Are some things irritating? For me, yes. But the main point is: HD. You can take some awesome HD vidz with it – something unheard of only 5 years ago (at anywhere near this price). If you are ok with the easy button, you can’t go wrong with this camera.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Version 12

Vegas Pro 8 [OLD VERSION]

Sony VCL-HGA07 HG Wide Angle Conversion Lens 0.7x for 30/37mm

Nice camcorder
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This product was received on time and in good condition.

We love this little camcorder. We’re occasional camcorder users, not hardcore yet into video editing and other higher end camcorder functions. But when we do use the camcorder, we’d like to have a user friendly camcorder, be able to capture good HD quality video and not have to fumble around with tapes or DVDs. This camcorder does all of that.

The battery that came with it is hardly adequate in comparison to the 120 gigs of hard drive. We bought the larger battery as well. Now that’s more like it.

VERY pleased with this camera, but not for feint of heart
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve had this camera for about 9 months now, and the more I use it, the happier I am with it. The takes absolutely beautiful video, and with the larger battery that I purchased, I can shoot with it seemingly forever without having to worry about running out of juice or storage, which is great. I’ve done several projects with it now and am extremely happy with the results.

After having used mini dv for years, it’s so nice to not have to deal with the tape. You just plug the camera into your computer via a usb cable, hit one button, and a few min later you have all the video on your hard drive, broken down into different segments just like you shot it. I love it!

After using it a lot though I do have some suggestions to consider for those debating whether or not to purchase it:

1) you need a pretty beefy computer if you expect to edit or even watch the video you shoot. My 4-core desktop machine works flawlessly with the video, but my 2-core laptop doesn’t do near as well.

2) you’ll need some “serious” software to edit or assemble the video. The Mpeg-transport stream that comes off the camera is not a format that you can expect to “just use”. You can’t send it to friends “as is” and expect them to watch it, or upload it to a phone or a website and expect others to be able to see it. You really need some sort of editor (like Premiere or Final Cut) if you want to effectively work with it. If your needs are simpler, and you mainly just want to shoot family outings and put it on the web or something, this camera may prove much more hassle then it’s worth.

3) it’s true that in low light, the video is pretty poor. Very grainy. For me that’s not a very serious limitation, but for some it might be a consideration.

The price is too expensive
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I don’t own this product. I have been watching the price of it for a couple of months. The price of it now is even two hundred dollars more than it was two months ago. I think I would rather stay with my old hi8 camcorder now.

Would you ship a thousand dollar camcorder like a five dollar book?!!
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The camera is a great product, no doubt about it~ There are plenty of reviews on that issue.

But let’s talk about the intelligence and customer care behind shipping an expensive, hard disk drive based camcorder in a box with zero protection. That’s right, not one ounce or penny spent on preventing damage to a piece of delicate electronics that is shipped from across the country, in the middle of the winter! Yeah, I paid for express shipping because I obviously didn’t want it going through the mail for a weeks time, but anyone with experience with UPS realizes the limits of care given to a random package in a pile of boxes that are routinely tossed from one end of the truck, I’ve seen it done many times, to the other as they try to make it through their route.

Wake up Amazon!!! Even the five dollar books I order from you benefit from being shrink wrapped to the bottom of the box thus preventing free form bouncing as they make their journey in the realities of modern day high volume shipping. Use some, read ANY, care~ for the love of common-sense!