I bought this camera from Circuit City on the day I was to fly out on a 2 week vacation. I have a Sony HI8, but I wanted a better quality camera to archive my children's activities.Overall, the camcorder is light, highly functional, and meets my expectations. However, I will probably return the camera. I'll go through my pros and cons:
Pros:
Lightweight
5.1 sound is great
still pictures are nice, but don't use the zoom. Zoom stills are grainy
touchscreen lcd is nice and intuitive.
Quick power on is a nice feature.
Cons:
The required codec to play the files are tough to comeby. I found that Cyberlink's PowerDVD Deluxe is the only 3rd party application to play these files.
The included software is very basic and proprietary. It doesn't share the codec with media player.
The 40gig harddrive is not sufficient for the HD recordings set at the highest resolution. Why would you get an HD camera and record at low res?
I used my laptop to download. Later, I found trying to play those downloaded files to be a pain.
Focus in low light conditions is poor. I found myself zooming in and out to try and get the auto focus to work properly. Looks like the SR11 has a manual focus knob.
The videos, although much better than SD, are not sharp and realistic like HD TV. The colors are dull and the details are not eyepopping.
Battery life: I bought the 5 hour battery and I got 1:30 life day after day.
No neck strap, but big deal.
The menus were not intuitive. Too many choices and screens.
All in all, for a $1000 investment, I didn't feel I got the best value. I am not looking at a Cannon HG10, but I wonder how the still pictures are?
I returned this one and splurged for the SR11. You get a 60gig HD, 10MP digital stills, and just a huge difference in picture quality indoors and out. And with a 10MP still camera built in, I almost don't even need a digital.
The camera fits nicely in the palm of my hand, all the controls are convienently located.
The menu's can be a little confsing at first, but after a few minutes it becomes pretty easy to navigate around, and if you're not too tech saavy, there's always the "easy" button.
Oh also to save battery life and if you're recording in bright sunlight, the SR11 has a viewfinder which this model doesn't.
I guess I should be leaving this in the SR11 reviews pages, but definetly save a few more months, or just spend the extra money on the SR11, it's well worth the expense.I bought this camera with a little hesitation because of some of the so-so reviews, but was more than happy with the purchase. The videos look amazing. Using the HDMI cable to hook up to LCD TV makes it completly worth the money. Bought this to record my wedding and am fully satisfied. The only con is the AVCHD format is not widely supported yet. My laptop won't play the files without jumping like crazy, but you can still burn the movies directly onto a DVD and play them in Blu-Ray Players like the PS3 and loose no quality. I would not let a new technology hold you back unless you plan on keeping your older computer for an extended period of time. (Then you should prob look into VHS)
Great CamcorderOverall, it is very satisfactory.
Pros: Light weight Easy to learn and operate, Good video picture quality (I like the slow motion video quality), Big storage (40GB is big enough)
Cons: Included battery (FH60) is ok, but FH70 would be better. AVCHD format to MPEG is not perfect. Uploading from computer hard dist to camcorder hard disk is not possible (in order to play on TV, I need to bring my laptop to TV). No view finder (but, it is ok since the SR11 w/t view finder costs lot more than SR10).I got it for $750 at Dell actually, which was the best I found without a risk of using potential fraud-sellers I found on google selling it cheaper. I think it is a good entry model into HD filming. It is probably the cheapest of the decent full-HD ones.
I am satisfied with the quality of the video. I believe that the more expensive models might have better video quality supported by better sensors, bigger lenses and better lower compression/quicker memory write times, but I think it is a good toy that will allow me to watch family videos 20 years from now without laughing at the quality of SD camcorders.
I am not very satisfied with the quality of the stills, but hey, I have a compact Canon S3 IS for that, so I would not count it for the rating. My S3 also records videos that are decent, but not perfect that's why I am getting an HD camcorder. Otherwise I'd say the S3 beats SD camcorder.
The 40GB HDD allows for too many hours of videos and can be accessed as USB Mass Memory device, so you can put other stuff there too.
The battery life seems a bit shortish, but you can get a bigger replacement battery for $30 a cheap upgrade.
It also lacks a carrying case, so I recommend getting at least the cheapest sony one. Overall Sony accessories are very pricey, but you can get cheap replacements that work OK.
The AVCHD format does not have a lot support yet, but that will come eventually, since Sony seems to be winning the HD formats war. I believe new Macs should be able to play AVCHD. I also ordered Sony Vegas software for editing (less than $100), that looks OK from the trial version, so you might consider it, unless you want to convert to AVI/WMV before you do the editing in Windows Movie Maker and lose quality through repeated compression. I also considered Pinnacle Studio, but read the reviews with complaints about crashes and decided to get the software from Sony (through Amazon :) ).
There are probably better cameras, but they are more expensive. Sony wants to rip you off with its accessory prices, but that's their right and you can choose replacements. It's not perfect so I guess it is worth 4 stars
Remember to get that carrying case, a tripod and a battery somewhere. A mini hdmi cable might be of use too.
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