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- My rating: 0 stars
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"DO NOT BUY"
Pros: Small, Small, Small
Cons: Expensive, ZERO-SUPPORT for MicroMV
Summary: I sent a complaint to Sony regarding the DCR-IP1 camera that I bought a couple of months ago. After taking videos for 2 months, now I've decided to download, edit the video and create a DVD. Of course, Sony did not do anything.
I use Adobe Premiere (the best, if not the best video editing software ever) for all my video editing. At first, I could not understand why my computer does not recognize the DCR-IP1 when connected via the Firewire port.
Sony implemented IEEE 1394 differently for the DCR-IP1. The camera is not recognized as a 'hardware' device (in Device Manager) but as a 'software' driver. This is obviously a fake IEEE 1394 implementation by Sony. IEEE 1394 is supposed to be an industry-standard but Sony decided on a different implementation.
Capture can be done only with MovieShaker which results in a proprietary .mmv file. Creating an mpeg or avi file was problematic at best. I wanted to create a DVD so I needed mpeg files. MovieShaker created the mpeg files but the audio was horrible. The audio was choppy and impossible to understand. I took several days of experimentation on finding out if my machine, the docking station, firewire cable or the camera was defective. Sony Support is horrible.
Eventually, one agent suggested downgrading the Quicktime software on my computer to ver 5.x. I repeated the conversion of the .mmv files to mpeg and this time, the mpegs produced a decent audio and video. So, I can finally create a DVD using Adobe Premiere.
Downgrading the Quicktime software to 5.x is one of the dumbest solutions ever. Guess what? ITunes WILL NOT WORK because it requires Quicktime 6.x.
Summary:
DCR-IP1 could have been a great product if Sony implemented the video capture in the 'usual' way via Firewire. Since Sony implmentation is 'software-based', you will be dependent of MovieShaker and Quicktime.
Recommendation:
DO NOT BUY ANY MICROMV device, not unless you have the patience and some hardware knowledge of your computer. Too expensive and ZERO-SUPPORT from Sony.
- 1 reply to this review
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Micro MV is a crappy, MPEG-2-based format. It is NOT DV, which is why you are dependent on the Sony software and you get the obscure file type. No matter what you do with this video, it has to be recompressed and further degraded, because the frames are inter-dependent. DV's frames are all independent, and that's why you can edit it with no degradation.
FireWire is a standard, and Sony's just too dumb to use the name. Apparently the marketing geniuses over there missed the fact that Apple made this trademark freely usable years ago. But i.Link isn't your problem. It's the stupid format of this camera.
Your complaints are valid, but your guesses as to their cause are just a little off the mark. If anyone recommended this camera to you, I would blame HIM.
Sony has really lost its way over the last few years. MP3 players that don't play MP3s, jumping on the stupid HDV bandwagon while Panasonic trumps it on the first try, misnaming FireWire, digital interfaces that differ from international standards. It goes on and on. Sony has always had a Microsoft-like penchant for taking "standards" and screwing them up in some proprietary manner, so they've reaped a richly deserved slump. The one bright spot for them is Blu-Ray, which on paper is far superior to lame HD-DVD.
