I received the camcorder a couple of days ago to replace my older Sony miniDV camcorder that is nine years old (still works well). I bought the new one after buying a Samsung 46" LCD flat screen and seening what I have been missing in HD television and it made the my existing camcorder look mediocre. I needed an HD camcorder to go with the HD display.I have seen other photographers using hard drive camcorders with USB ports and decided then that I would go that for next purchase of a camcorder. I saw two advantages over the miniDV tape of the hard drive: (1)the ability to transfer the images onto a computer quickly (it is more than twice as fast as transferring a miniDV tape using firewire) and (2) the HD had 4 hours or more of operation without changing tapes. I film my son's sporting events that run two hours and changing tapes is always ackward.
I have used on trial basis a camcorder that had the small DVD burner built inside and it worked fine but the need for for having the camcorder operate on the charger for 15 minutes or more to "finalize" the disk was very annoying. I also worry about the miniDVD disks skipping during filming while using miniDVD camcorders in high shake environments such as in the back of speedboat. The just seem intuitively more vibration prone, but I could be worried about nothing. Thus I chose the hard drive version over the miniDV tape and the miniDVD disk similiar camcorder that Sony sells.
Thus far the device has worked well and looks great on the HD large screen TV. I film my son's first football game in HD tommorrow. I had to go back to the store to buy the bigger QM71 battery. The battery the come with camcorder claims to work 90 minutes, but this goes by quickly. The QM71 battery lasts for more three hours. I amd considering also buying the QM91 battery but it very thick and takes up lots of space behind the camera. I like to have two batteries, one to charge and one to use. I also bought a travel charger for the camcorder that makes it possble to charge the battery at home while using the camcorder untethered with a second battery.
I read reports about some people no liking the touch screen and finding it confusing. This is a complicated and it is at time confusing but I like the touch screen.
The worst part of the camcorder is not the camera at all, the software is not up to the rest of the amazing capabilities of the rest of the gear. I use the camera with Windows XP and so I used the free sony software the came with the camera. THe camera puts out .m2ts files. I would guess that none of your current software recognizes this. Mine certainly did not and I have lots of different current software. Apparently .m2ts is the file extentions for the new AVC/H.264 the Sony and Panasonic (of VHS tape fame) are jointly trying to establish. I bought this camera because I this this new disk format with dominated the prosumer video space and many companies will sell slick software for it.
One surprise (it should not have been but I did think about it) was that the HD video images require much more computing horsepower to display than the prior generations of video. A 3 GHz Pentium 4 is the bare minimum to allow a PC to show the video images without jerkyness (Also the new Pentium DUOs work was well). If your current computer is a little old you can use the camcorer to play the videos on your flatscreen but this is not a long term solution. Is possible to fairly easily move videos back forth between the camcorder and your old computer using the USB port. The transfer speed is around 500 MB per minute so the entire 30GB may take an hour. I may a little optimistic on this transfer rate but it not way off. I have just done a few transfers thus far and never have I transfer the whole drive. The longest transfer was 20 minutes and this around 1/3 of a drive. This is much, much fast than the 120MB per minute that I have been getting using my miniDV tape drive on my old Sony camcorder. The radical increase in transfer speed is what I was looking for. While the now think of this as being awesome fast, it will not take more than a few weeks before I think that even this speed is painfully slow. That is why technology is, never enough.
The camera controls, zoom, etc are fairly conventional. Although the detail in the images is awesome since they are HD. I use the 10X optical zoom with a 2X digital zoom mode selected which give me plenty of zoom range. There is a 10X digital zoom range mode but the images are very pixelated at the extreme end of the zoom.
The camera is surprisingly small and compact, moreso than my old camcorder.
The sound is awesome (Dolby 5 channel surround sound). I never new how important sound was until four years ago when I got the surround sound for my DVD player. Have surround for football games and basketball game filming will put the crowd behind me and the field noises in front of me. I will learn more how works out in the future, but inital test show it is working as it seems it should.
The real test will come after using the camera couple of months and seeing all the difference in the new film results. I sure the camera will out well. I many have to buy a new computer or a new video card to using my computer as a player, but I still have some software changes to try.
I can burn traditonal DVDs or a new kind of HD DVDs (called AVCHDs). If I get a bluray burner I can make Bluray HD DVDs. Many options for playback. I store all of our currently family videos on a 750GB hard disk for which I have a USB 750GB drive for backup. I like this method of storing the video collection. Many Blurays or othe DVDs is not my first choice. I have seen dedicated HD video players that can operate through the ethernet. This another avenue to explore. Meanwhile I will use the camera as a video player and see if buy a new video card for my computer fixes my jerkiness with my 2.5 GHZ Pentium computer.
The best thing about the camera is the awesome look of the videos on the large flatscreen LCD display and the worst thing is the annoying software that comes for free with the camera (although it does 75% of what you want).
The downside of moving into the future in this way is that current editing software does not yet support the new format. Thus, either you use Sony's supplied software on windows, or you wait until your software company produces an update that supports the format.
AVCHD is the next generation in consumer video and I expect it will be widely supported. I am betting good money (eg: I bought an SR1) that Apple will release updates to Final Cut and iMovie this January that support AVCHD.
However, if you are happy shooting in SD for now, you can get a workflow that works on the mac. The SR1 shoots SD in MPEG-2 format, and while iMovie doesn't yet support Dolby 5.1 sound, it can be easily converted.
All that's necessary to work with an edit SR1 video (in SD mode only) on a Mac right now is the Apple $20 MPEG-2 decoder add on to quicktime (from the Apple site, but included with Final Cut and DVD Studio Pro) and a conversion application to make use of it. I found StreamClip to be a great (Free) solution from Squared 5... their website is at www squared5 dot com.
Additionally the picture taking mode saves data to the hard drive, so this camera really is the one solution for all my imaging needs. 30G will store a lot of pictures!
If you want to work with HD right now, you need to go with the Sony Windows software, or go buy an HDV camcorder. But if you're willing to use it in SD mode now, you can get a workflow going on the Mac with the SR1. And I really expect full HD support for this camcorder will be in the next revision of the software.
Don't bash a product because it uses a new spec that the software doesn't yet support! The products have only been on the market a week or two. Apple and Adobe and everyone else will surely support these cameras.
And when they do, these will be the solution that can't be beat!
I bought an M71 battery and spent 4 hours driving around shooting video-at the end of it, only had 5GB of video and still had batterylife left... this camera is nice to the batteries, and the hard drive is so big that in SD mode, you can get 27 hours of footage at the highest bitrate! Its nice to not be limited by having to swap tapes.
Great Camera all around, fully featured and image quality is great, though if you do a lot of night shooting you probably want a three-chip camera.I have gone through several camcorders in the past 5 years and recently began my search for a hi-def camcorder. One of my frustrations with DV tapes is that for me, they tended to sit on the shelf and gather dust. They took tons of storage space to encode (way more than AVCHD). Editing to DVD also seemed to be more complex than necessary and time consuming. As a result, I have many tapes that I just don't bother to burn to DVD. It was just easier to plug in the camcorder and watch the video from there.
So through my research, I discovered disk based camcorders. Most of the reviews criticized the image quality. This second generation seems to have improved quite a bit. With the compression and ease of transfer to a PC (literally plug in and push one button) I was sold on the Hard Drive format. I'm not a big fan of mini-DVD formats either because of the unique DVD's used and some compatibility issues.
I was pretty much set on a 3CCD JVC Everio GZ-MG505. This is a standard definition camcorder but with 3CCD's and pretty highly regarded. I had a hard time deciding between 3CCD vs high def (AVCHD) +$300
After reading more and more reviews, I realized that even with 3CCD's, the image quality just can not compare to high def. Even high def converted to standard def is better. So I went with the Sony.
The Sony is so easy to use that I was out shooting immediately after charging the battery. I haven't even cracked open the instruction manual yet. That says a lot for how intuitive the camcorder is. When I ordered from Amazon, they expected it to arrive after Christmas. I contacted Amazon and they stated they were scrambling trying to get them before Christmas. Sure enough, Amazon delivered and I have already filmed my daughters Holiday Recital and her meeting with Santa. (The SR1 is great in low light by the way).
My thoughts on AVCHD is that it will be supported soon enough. We have a high def projector but most of our TV's are still standard. Also, we do not own a high def DVD player or BlueRay. We will probably get a PS3 next year. I bet AVCHD software will arrive well before we actually get a high def DVD player so I'm not too concerned about the delay. The SD video in the meantime has been superb and easy to share with friends and family. If I really need to show off the high def, I just plug in the camcorder.
I have no complaints and as a result gave this camcorder a 5 star rating. But I do have a few minor tweaks that would have been nice.
Battery life could be a bit better. Included battery is about 70 minutes. 2 hours would have been ideal but an additional high capacity better solved that problem but added to the weight.
Camcorder is a tad bigger than comparable hard drive based camcorders (those JVC ones are tiny). I actually like the feel in my hand though and it is not too big.
Included software could be a little bit better especially since there is no real support for AVCHD yet. It is very easy to use though. You can edit start and stop points of clips but you can't rearrange the order or include any transitions and the title screens are very limited (about 5 or 6). But again, works well and easy to understand.
Photos during filming limited to 3. My last JVC, I could shoot unlimited still photos during filming. Not that big of a deal though as this is probably rarely used. Just stop and start filming again to shoot 3 more photos.
Hard Drive is somewhat limited at 30GB. For such an expensive camcorder and inexpensive hard drives, I'm surprised the Sony did not come with an 80gb drive which is pretty common and even low end today. I haven't explored this but I doubt Sony made it easy to upgrade the hard drive myself. Of course when you have a high def camcorder, most people will want to record at the highest quality settings as they can always reduce the output for their intended viewing device so having a high resolution source is ideal. Unfortuanatly, at the highest quality setting AVCHD 15MB XP you get about 4 hours of recording time. I personally don't think this is quite enough time for a standard week or two vacation. I usually travel with my laptop and can download the video so this is not a concern for me but with an 80GB drive, one could get 10 hours which seems adequate for the typical vacation.
I didn't deduct for these shortcomings because even without these, the camera is unique in its category and is an amazing camera. I didn't feel like I should penalize the camcorder for my "wish list."
Overall, after months of reviewing camcorders, I am very happy with my purchase and would make the same purchase again.The quality of the video from this camcorder is amazing. I consider myself a videophile, and I own a lot of HD equipment and TVs. I use a Mitsubishi 720p front projector with a 108" screen that is capable of showing most if not all video imperfections; however, this camera's video passes the test. I will not go so far as to say it is perfect, but the quality is amazing and far exceeded my initially high expectations. Video taken under good lighting conditions is absolutely fantastic, and I would say it is on par with broadcast HD minus a lot of the broadcast HD motion artifacts. Videos taken in low light are not quite as good, but much better than I had expected and many times better than my older miniDV camcorder. The lower light video is grainier, but it is a consistent very fine, gray film-like grain (imagine Black Hawk Down on blu-ray). The grain in my older miniDV videos was much more distracting with larger bluish, green blobs everywhere. Some reviewers have reported a lot of motion artifacts from the avchd compression, but I have not seen it yet. For those with this problem, it may be helpful to adjust the compression settings on the camera. Out of the box the camera defaults to HQ compression HD video (7 hour HD mode). Upon seeing this, I changed the compression to the XP mode (4 hour HD mode). I have seen no such problems at this setting, and 4 hours of video at a time is plenty of time between downloads.
I also own a very good 7.1 surround sound system, and I can again say that audio wise this camera is up to the task. It is wonderful to hear your home recordings play back in 5.1 surround sound with very good clarity and without any tape motor noise. I was taking pictures of a friend's baby, and you could hear her clearly from the front channels while the out of frame family members audio was present in the front and surround channels depending on their orientation to the baby/camera. Even my wife was wowed, and she is hard to impress since she has become so desensitized to my many gadgets.
Recording onto a hard drive is also great. The ability to play back your videos instantly without having to worry about tape position is very nice. It is easier to review and delete unnecessary clips, and the camera even has a few very basic editing functions built in. My wife was intimidated by our older camera, but she is already using this one more due to the lithium ion battery and hard drive. She doesn't have to worry about recording time/battery life in most cases. She can just pick it up and go.
I can't attest to the editing of avchd video or the mac compatability because I haven't tried either yet, but I did install the included software onto my PC. The videos download very quickly over the USB 2.0 connection. I was able to download video and burn a DVD+R to avchd format using the supplied software. It is very quick and does not degrade the avchd quality in any way. I was then able to play back the disc in my PS3 blu-ray drive in full HD with surround sound with the same results as hooking the camera up via HDMI. You can even put multiple clips on one DVD and it while play them back in order with a slight pause in between. It is nice to be able to go from video on the camera's HDD to a blu-ray compatible DVD in less than 30 minutes with little to no effort involved. The camera even has a one-touch disc burn button on it (haven't tried it yet though) so in theory you don't even need to open the software and go through any menu settings, it should be all automated.
I love the touchscreen. It is wonderfully designed with context sensitive menus that limit the selections based upon the cameras operating mode. It is very intuitive and almost makes the manual unnecessary. It even has a help function that explains the different settings in easy to understand terms.
So far I don't miss firewire, and I know that eventually the editing software will be there. For now, I will enjoy my beautiful avchd DVDs.I have had my HDR-SR1 for a week now. It is my first high-definition camera, and my second hard-drive based camera.
First, I'll get the bad comments out of the way...
The camera takes about 7.5 seconds to power up and be ready to shoot. Although this is shorter than my last hard-drive camera (JVC was 10 seconds), it's still longer than most tape-based cameras. It isn't unreasonably long, but I like a quick power-up time so I don't miss an opportunity to shoot something happening NOW.
The AVCHD format is so new that it is not yet supported by any other software other than the Sony software that comes with the camera, and it only allows playback no advanced editing. However, I did not take away any stars in my rating for this, because I fully expect the AVCHD format to be widely supported soon enough-otherwise I wouldn't have bought the camera. Besides, even if I won't be able to edit the footage until sometime in the future, I figured it's more important that I'm at least shooting my footage in high-def... these moments will never occur again!
The camera is a little bit on the large side (compared to most new cameras available today). But it's not so large that I would consider it "bulky". It's probably about the size of a typical new camera a few years ago.
And now for the good...
The picture quality is excellent. In bright light, the video is crystal clear and there are absolutely no visible compression artifacts at the XP and HQ settings. I've never seen HDV footage but can't imagine it being better than this. SP and LP modes are not to bad, but the compression issues become noticeable. In low light the camera does have the typical amount of noise in the image, but it looks more like analog noise than digital compression noise, which I find much less annoying. I consider this camera to be a good low-light performer, but of course it's all relative and this is just my opinion. There is a Night-Shot mode (infrared light/greenish image) which workes well in TOTAL darkness up to about 20' away, at full frame rate. Super NightShot mode and Color Slow Shutter modes offer even more light in the image, but sacrifice shutter speed and everything gets blurred.
Sound is incredible. 5.1ch surround really makes you feel like you're there. Note however that there really is not a centre front channel microphone. A centre channel of sound is digitally created by the camera combining the front left and front right channels. Still sounds fine to me though.
Automatic lens cover is a joy! Opens when you turn it on and closes when you turn it off.
The SteadyShot mode does NOT affect picture quality. With most cameras this does decrease image quality in some way, but not with the SR1.
The lag time from pressing the record button to when the recording actually begins is only about half a second. Pretty reasonable. When you press the button again to stop recording, it takes about 1 second to respond.
The photo quality (4.0MP) is the best I've ever seen on a camcorder, but still doesn't measure up to a 4.0MP still-camera. In other words, personally I won't give up my 4.0MP still camera yet for very important photos, however if I only have the SR1 with me, I will still take photos with it (the photos are good enough to make decent 4x6 prints). With previous camcorders the photo quality was so bad I always carried my still camera with me too. Now I don't have to. Please note that if you're taking photos with this camera while in video mode (either while the camera is rolling or not) you are limited to only 2.3MP images. Nice thing is that this camera DOES have a flash for photos. The only time it won't work is while the camera is recording video. Also, if you try to take photos while the camera is recording video, you are limited to only 3 photos until you stop recording so the camera can save the images.
InfoLithium battery is wonderful. The screen always displays reminaing battery life in minutes. It even takes into account the current state of the camera's use (for example if you turn on the NightShot IR light, it will decrease remaining battery time by about 15% since it takes more power). It's even accurate right down to the minute. Of course, if you're doing a lot of zooming then you may notice the minutes counting down a little faster than real-time, as it recalculates the power usage. By the way, installing the battery does not add length to the camera is it does with most, as it is actually recessed into a slot in the back. Only the extended-life batteries will add length/bulk to the camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment