Sony Handycam DCR-SR200

I bought this camcorder at Best Buy for $750 (with tax) and I think it was worth it.

Pros:
- Ease of use. This camcorder is extremely easy to use. All you have to do is press record, that's it. Menus are very easy to navigate through. I thought that the touch screen might be hard to use, but it isn't.

- Start-up time. It takes only about 5-6 seconds for it to start up and start recording.

- Audio quality. You can either record using 5.1 mode or in stereo mode. I did not try stereo mode, but 5.1 mode works great.

- Video quality. There are 3 modes for recording. I only recorded in HQ setting and picture quality is pretty good. It is not the best I've seen but it is very nice. I hooked up the camera to my 42" Sony high definition TV and the quality was good. When I hooked up the camcorder to a smaller, not a hi-def, tv and played the same video it looked even better.

- Video is very easy to transfer to the computer. All you have to do is install some drivers and import software that is provided. You don't even need to install the software, just the drivers. Once the drivers are installed, camcorder acts like a removable storage drive. You just copy and paste the clips from your camcorder. You're going to need some kind of video editing software to put the clips together to make movies since each time you stop recording a new is created .

- Quality of still pictures. The quality of still pictures is impressive for a camcorder, but it does not beat the quality of 4 mega pixel still camera.

Cons:
- Low light performance could be better. Video looks grainy in low light, but if low light setting is turned on it dramatically improves the picture. This is not an issue to me since I don't think I am going to be shooting at night all that often.

- Hard drive is getting a little warm if filming for an extended period of time. This can cause some discomfort.

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I chose this camcorder because because I did not want to deal with tapes or disks. All I wanted to do was to transfer the video to my computer easily and being able to edit it and burn to DVD. All of this is every easy to accomplish using this camera, so I am happy with the purchase.

This is a great HDD camera for personal use or even events. I have used this during my events and I could say that this camera did a pretty awesome job. I would definitely suggest this to those who wants to start capturing their family affairs, gatherings, and meetings for documentation purposes.

I didn't think I'd like this product as much as I do so my expectations were rather low. I was surprised that the pictures came out so clear. It seems that you can take video forever and it stores a whole lot without additional memory. Even shoots moving subjects well. I love the touch screen. However, I can't stand that it is so hard to share what I video tape. Sony sells video editing software made for this camera but it doesn't come with the product, it's an additional charge. That's just not good business. At the very least a free trial CD should come with the product. So if you intend of sharing video, I don't think you'll like this product. If you intend on shooting quality video and pictures (with a slight adjustment to learning the ins and outs of the camera), buy this camera. I've had it for 3 years or so and I do love using it.