Sony Handycam DCR-SR100

Pros: Nice Large LCD - Amazing picture, color and sound

Cons: LCD controls everything.Stills not great.Need Very fast PC

Summary: Finally, I bought a camcorder, my first camcorder ever.

I‘ve been shopping for almost 2 years. Did not like the DVD/tapes idea. When I heard about the hard disk, I preferred to wait.

I Almost bought the new standard DCR-SR100 ($1,000) last week, then finally went for this new high definition HDR-SR1 ($1,500), and thank God I did. Once you get used to the nice large LCD of the HDR-SR1, you cannot even stand to look at the smaller screen of DCR-SR100
I got the HDR-SR1 for almost 4 days now.

The Good.
The cam itself Looks great, Nice and heavy. The LCD screen is nice and big.
Watching videos on the LCD is awesome. Picture is perfect. Every thing is so detailed. Colors are amazing. Dolby Sound is awesome.
Playing back videos on my regular 20” TV is very sharp and crisp. Just like watching a TV program. Love it.
You can shoot Videos, either in High definition or standard modes which is nice.

The Bad.
The first thing I noticed is that the plastic cover of the DC power jack is very flimsy. Feels like it is ready to snap or break when you move it to charge the camera.

Holding the camera with the right hand, the operating buttons are little confusing and not that comfortable to use, but I guess it just a matter of time until you get used to them.

The LCD screen controls everything. Yes it is very cool to use, but lots of touching and finger prints. I had to buy an LCD cleaner yesterday. I have a feeling that that LCD won’t last long.

Photo stills are not that great if you are used to a good digital camera.

Transferring data to my dual processor Pentium-3 PC using their software took along time, more than 1/2 hour to transfer like 10 pics and 5 HD videos. Maybe I should try windows explorer copy and paste next time.

Playing back the standard definition videos on my pc was OK, but playing the high definition ones was very bad. Video and sound are very choppy. Manual says that I need Pentium-4 or higher to play the HD videos. Ook then!

Not very easy to understand what to do with the software. I am still learning but so far I am not enjoying the PC experience. I will look into how and if I can edit videos tonight.

Overall, I am very happy with it, but hope that its price won’t drop down soon, so I don’t feel like I got cheated