Sony DCR-HC21 MiniDV Handycam Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom

This is a nice little camera! I just wanted a decent camera to take videos of the kids this fills that need perfectly. The picture is nice, the colors are accurate and there is very little motor noise (motor noise is often a problem on minidv camcorders in this price range). The 20x optical zoom is fantastic. Low light is a bit grainy but nothing I can't deal with.

The one thing I don't like about this camcorder is the touch-screen controls. As a self-proclaimed digital camera junkie I've spent years trying NOT to touch the LCD screen and on this camera you have to touch the screen to operate the camera. This leaves the LCD screen all fingerprinted and smeary. This is VERY annoying in my opinion and I'm not sure of a safe and effective way to clean the screen. Not a really good design concept!

Other than the touch screen, which by the way IS easy to use, I really like this little camera. Easy to operate right out of the box (I tend to read the manual as a last resort!), VERY small and full of features.

About two days before I exchanged a Hi-8 camera for this gem, I spent two days with a huge Sony TRV 138. It had to weigh about 2 pounds, required the big tapes Hi-8 tapes and was very bulky and noticeable. I decided to exchange the camera for a better model. At first I was going to go with a Digital-8 but the model was basically the same size as the Hi-8. I had already filled up one Hi-8 and the digital-8 could play it. But in-store, I was hooked on to the smaller mini-DV's.

I was so pleases and amazed when I had this little gem in my hand. I am a senior in high school and I want to document my life and I also run a website (www.younglibs.com) and wanted to put some video on there. Considering I'm a pretty tech savvy teen, I had to get it. It's digital so I can put it on the computer and share it. So I coughed up the $180 (grand total of $420) dollar difference to take it home.

The camera is great. It's very small, lightweight and comfortable and is an attention getter. It has a cool swivel screen and Sony's personal touch with the Night Shot, Steady Shot and easy mode that is available on all Sony's. I also like the widescreen mode and some of the AE effects like black and white that you can either record as or playback as. It also has a fader so my videos won't look like collages. It has a built in lens cap that you can just slide up and stead if fixing some attachment to it. It also has those Carl Zeiss lens (I really don't care). If you go to Ritz Camera you can get a free $99 kit with it that includes a cleaner, tripod and carrying case. I also really like the end search feature so I won't record over anything (which I did frequently with the Hi-8). You can also take useless stills with it too, no memory card slot, not that you'll need one for the crappy photos. Another plus is that it operates a web cam (with both video and sound), great for instant messengers like me.

I do have some gripes though. The playback sound is located right where you put your hand at. You cannot hear audio if playing back through the black and white viewfinder, B&W viewfinder for a 2005, $400 model, there is no headphone jack and I don't know how long the touch screen will last considering its the menu and controls.

If you are under the impression that you can just shoot video, plug in the USB and transfer the movie to your computer, you've got another thing coming. Here is where Sony's proprietary ways come in. Yes, they supply the USB, but USB is too slow to transfer quality video to your computer. The USB is only theoretically there to transfer the pictures. On top of that, there is no way to transfer the video directly on to your hard drive, with USB you can only transfer it to CDR. And when you play it in the DVD player, it isn't pretty, the quality is terrible. If you are smart though and want to waste more time trying to get it on the computer, copy and paste the CDR data on your computer. In fact it took almost 3 hours to get 30 minutes of video on the disc and it neglected to put the other 30 minutes on the disc even though there was still tons of space available.

So what I have found out is that you have to buy a I.Link (Firewire) cable (warning don't buy it on the Sony site, its 30-70 dollars, go to pricegrabber.com, I have one on the way for $10 altogether) which allows you to A) put the movies on your computer B) does it in real time (60 minute tape takes 60 minutes not 6 hours) C) doesn't loose quality when transferring unlike the choppy USB. So you see what you get. That also means that you have to buy a Firewire card (about $20 on pricegrabber, ecost, and tigerdirect.com) and have it installed in the computer. If you have ever installed a USB 2.0 card, have fun, if you never have, ask for help with cracking your computer.

And voila you have a movie lab. What I neglected to tell you is that now you need a bigger hard drive 160-200 gigs will do and that will run you another $150 dollars. Just for a heads up 7 minutes of video capture was about 23mb.

If you want to see the video capture quality, I have videos I recorded at www.younglibs.com/blog. If you are a republican, you might have a problem though.

Thanks

Chris

Buy Sony DCR-HC21 MiniDV Handycam Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom Now

Well, before purchasing this camera, I took the precaution of reading the previous comments about it, and decided the Cons of the camera were worth the price saving.

Now that I own it, I can say that it has the next list of cons and pros:

PROs

Very light

Compact design

"Easy mode" of operation, so anyone can use it

Very good 20x optical Zoom

Optional Lamp

All the Sony features (nightshot, viewfinder, steadyshot, etc)

CONs

The touchscreen gets dirty from using it

DVD recording only from firewire.

One of the other cons I read before, the noise, didn't bother me at all.

Strongly reccomend to get the LCS-VA30 Camera Case, Everything fits in and there's still space for my Cybershot P32, spare batteries, and a couple of MiniDV's.

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We bought a DCR-21 a few weeks ago and have very mixed feelings about it. Unless the major problems can be taken care of, it's going back. Pluses: 1. it's small and easy to use. 2. The zoom allowed us to get detailed video of sea turtles swimming in the ocean from the 8th floor balcony of a resort. 3. The videos we've downloaded to our Macs are clear. 4. The "easy" button on the camera will allow the non-tecchies in the families to use it without (or with less) fear. 5. It connects to our Mac with Firewire (not included with the camera, but we already had a cable that came with the computer) or with USB. 6. It works great as a webcam with Firewire no special software or installation needed. (Kind of expensive for a webcam, though!)

OK, now for the minuses. 1. The battery charges IN the camera. If we get an extra battery so we can swap them on the fly, we can't recharge the dead one while using the other one, unless we buy an external recharger, for more money of course. 2. Also, a longer life battery is thick and will stick out into the user's hand. 3. The zoom goes so quickly that it's hard to control. 4. The touch-screen is cute, but how long will it last? 5. The lens cover is opened/closed with a manual switch easy enough to do, but if you forget to close it you really won't know unless you happen to look at the switch's position. 6. The videos we downloaded have AWFUL audio a constant and loud ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Either there's something wrong with the camera or we downloaded wrong not sure yet. 7. One of the features we liked was "Nightshot" that allowed low-light taping without shining a light on the subject. It doesn't work things we could clearly see with the naked eye weren't even remotely visible on the viewfinder, LCD, or tape. 8. Customer support is terrible. We had trouble installing the supplied software and called Sony, they said sorry, it's not Mac compatible but the software and manual clearly say that it is. When we called the software provider's non-toll-free number, they said to call Apple. Of course Apple can't support third-party software. (We haven't gotten their software to work, but we could download and play with iMovie.)

Bottom line we can get used to everything except the audio problem. Assuming that we're either doing something wrong OR there's a fixable problem, I'll give the camera three stars the size (5) and picture quality (5) balanced against the drawbacks.

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Well, about 2 months ago, I also got the "black Screen" an earlier commenter on this camera got. However, before buying this camera, I was told that this would happen when the camera knew it needed to be cleaned! Ya, it may seem odd, but the camera is doing the only thing it can to protect itself. By turning itself off like this, it lets you know it must be cleaned, and saves you money in the long run by not hurting the camera. Unfortunately, it seems if you don't know, you think the camera is just busted. Anywho, just a heads up for y'all so you can fix the problem before it happens to you.

PS the longest I've heard of one of these cameras going before cleaning is about 2 years.