Tickets to Disneyland are expensive, sufficiently so that when my wife decided that I should record the memories in moving pictures rather than stills, the price of the camcorder was almost certain to be unimportant. If recording the Disney experience would cost me less than the Disney experience itself, then the camera could be relegated to the "acceptable collateral damage" column of my planned budget.The price of this camcorder isn't bad, but I've decided that camcorder pricing in general is a dishonest racket. The battery that comes with this camcorder is good for less than an hour of recording. When you're going to Disneyland, 45 minutes just isn't enough. You need to buy a bigger battery (I went with the biggest, 10 hours), and for that you'll pay almost a third of the price of this camcorder (less on Amazon, but I didn't have the luxury of waiting the several weeks they said it would take to get the battery). You need to buy a camera case. You need to buy a battery charger. You need to buy at least six DVDs (that gives you a bit under three hours of standard recording time). By the time I bought the stuff I needed to go with the camcorder, I'd spent about half the price of the camcorder itself. Plan to spend at least $200 more than the price of the camcorder on accessories if you want to take it on vacation with you. The collateral damage to your budget will always be greater than the price of the camera.
That said, this camcorder performed very well. It's very easy to use, and with a little practice I learned to record events one-handed while watching said events unfold in front of my eyes, not just on the screen. That is, once I got the camera going I could occasionally start watching my kids and stop watching the camcorder screen. Score a big one for the stabilization feature. The menus on the screen are easy to navigate, and the screen responds nicely to touch. I didn't have to push too hard, and it didn't respond to the passing of my finger over one button on its way to another.
The image quality is very nice. The zoom feature works very smoothly, and 25X optical zoom is more than enough to catch your kids' expressions of horror and delight when they're on a ride and your feet are planted on blessedly solid ground. And if you have to ride with them, well, I've nauseated friends and family with my clip of scenery zooming by while my kids made our tea-cup spin as fast as the mechanism would allow. I filmed at standard quality, and it shows nicely on a 32" HD TV. It looks grainy on a 42" screen.
The autofocus works pretty well when the lens isn't zoomed. I used it at full zoom in a large auditorium when my son's kindergarten class sang last month. I was seated about 150 feet back and the auditorium was dark. He kept going in and out of focus. I pulled back the zoom and the focus settled down. The sound was good, but I was bothered to hear my own whispers to my wife when I played back the video. I'd prefer that the microphone give more prominence to sound in front of the camera and less to sound that's in back.
If I had it to do over again, I'd probably buy a hard-drive camcorder rather than a mini-DVD camcorder. The DVDs are just more stuff you have to carry around in your bag, and the odds are you'll have to change the DVD at an inopportune time (e.g., right when your daugther is discovering just how long and wet a giraffe's tongue is). If, like me, you're a Mac owner, you'll find that Sony camcorders work pretty well with iDVD and iMovie. But my four-year old iMac doesn't support this camcorder. Newer ones do (we're upgrading, so no big deal for us). The video software that comes with the camcorder is only for Windows; it will only support still photos on Mac.
(An update on the above: No, new Macs do NOT support this camcorder. To download video to iMovie requires either that your camcorder have a firewire port or that it produce files in MPEG4 format. This camcorder has no firewire port and records in MPEG2. The fix that I've found is a program (e.g., Popcorn2) that will convert MPEG2 to MPEG4. It's not elegant and is mighty annoying, but it gets the job done. If you're a Mac owner, life will be simpler with another camcorder.)
On balance I like this camcorder. I'd like it more if it came with a bigger battery, a battery charger (you can charge a battery in the camera, but it takes a lot longer), and Mac compatible software. And if that touch-screen had a finish that weren't so easy to smudge.
I always use miniDVD-RW or miniDVD+RW, I have 3 discs of each type. The last time we went outing, I ended up only use 2 discs, and I got plenty of shots that I keep, in fact all 25 minutes of everything that I wanted to record and will see it over and over again.
I use MAC, and Sony and all other DVD camcorder out there don't supply you with any MAC compatible software. But my MacBook easily recognize the Sony! But since I use DVD-RW, I can (first) finalize the discs, and use "Popcorn" or "Toast" to copy the video to my MAC, it's faster this way.
And... I can Re-Use the disc later by "Un-Finalizing" it! .. Perfect.
DVD+RW is even better, you don't need to finalize the disc, you can just pop in to compatible (any player that accept 8" disc) player to see your recorded video.
Other important spec: DCR-DVD308 uses 1.0 Megapixel Advanced HAD(tm) CCD Imager, just perfect in term of quality and my budget. the 408 uses 2.1 MP and 108 uses 1/6".
Low light and indoor performance are good, better than Canon and Panasonic and waaayyy better than JVC (all in the same price range and similar specs)
I can go on with the specs, but just go to sonystyle and compare the 108, 308 and 408 yourself.
Canon's LCD I thought is sharper and brighter than Sony, but you actually can change the setting in the menu, to me, I prefer the default setting since I use it outdoors most of the time, and I can see better with the default setting.
Panasonic has a smoother zoom, in Sony, you can have the same smooth zoom by using the one in the LCD.
I don't use the photo features (still image), I have a Nikon D40 for that purpose.
My only wish list: ability to record to Memory Stick.
Anyway, this is a perfect camcorder for me.
My other choices (and worthy competitor to the Sony) beside this model are:
Canon DC230 and Panasonic VDR-D230
Buy Sony DCR-DVD308 1MP DVD Handycam Camcorder with 25x Optical Zoom Now
This camera is really slick. The one thing that I don't like is that it does not accept SD cards (and no on-board system memory... you need a duo chip to take still pictures). However, the picture is amazing and saving to the DVD is a snap. The camera is comfortable to hold, and has a touch screen which makes viewing the videos easy, too. All in all, 5/5 stars. Excellent.Update: One annoying issue is that every time I turn it on, it gives me a nice message that says "Sony media recommended." This stays on for 30 seconds. I get the picture, Sony! Sheesh. Unfortunately, I can't find a way to turn this message off.
Read Best Reviews of Sony DCR-DVD308 1MP DVD Handycam Camcorder with 25x Optical Zoom Here
I bought the Sony DCR-DVD308 camcorder on Dec/07 to film out my holiday season. So far I've had a great experience with it and here you can find my detailed review of the camcoreder:1. Audio/Video:
Both, the audio and video quality are superb. I was seriously considering buying an HD camera and paying double for it. I can honestly say I'm glad I didn't, the differences between low-def and High-def camcorder movie are still too minimal to be worth paying for. (I've seen friends HD recorded movies)
2.Zoom
The zoom is fantastic and it has 3 modes: a) No optical Zoom b) 50x digital Zoom and c) 2000 x Digital Zoom. My wife and I love surfing and with the 50x mode I captured her riding waves like never before. The reach of the zoom is outstanding and the quality of objects far away are captured in great detail.
3.LCD Display
I was concern about the touch display feature but it has turned out to be very friendly. The LCD size of the screen is big enough for that, I wouldnt recommend a smaller size (like that of the DCR-DVD 108 model for example) screen as the touch feature could be tricky.
4. Battery life
I read many reviews that the battery life was a bit dissapointing as it only lasted about 90min with the LCD on. Again, I'm glad I saved $70 on a separete battery as 90 min is more t
Want Sony DCR-DVD308 1MP DVD Handycam Camcorder with 25x Optical Zoom Discount?
There has been much talk about whether you can use this camera with a Mac. I have found that you CAN use it!! Get a -RW disc, record your video, then FINALIZE the disc in the camera, connect the USB cable to the camera and computer, turn it on and import the video into iMovie08 very easily. The key here is finalizing the disc and having iMovie08. You can later unfinalize the disc after importing the video so that it may be used further.This took a bit of research...the manual says you can't do it. But I did it, and it was easy, so I'm thinking you CAN!
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