Rating: 
Summary: Very happy so far
Review: I bought this camera about 1 week ago. I had read in a review that the zoom was difficult to operate--that it only had 2 speeds: fast and slow. I found, however, that with very little practice I was able to use a medium speed on the zoom. I haven't had the opportunity yet to move any recordings to a VHS or DVD, but played back once on a TV and the picture was excellent. Didn't notice any motor noise in the tape itself, but perhaps it's too soon to tell. Night shot was a delightful surprise (I could see better through the camera than I could with my own eyes). Love the camera's size, and will use it much more because of that. Too early to give an evaluation on the battery that came with the camera. It's one of those Infolithium batteries, but the reading keeps changing on the camera, so I'm never too sure how much time I actually have left. I'll probably buy a 4-hour battery for trips.
Rating:
Summary: Great camera for the college student
Review: I just bought this camcorder yesterday, but the 24 hours that I've spent going through its features and video quality, I must say that I'm fairly impressed. I know it's not at the top of the food chain, but the picture/sound quality is what I expected it to be for its class. I'm happy with the feature set; especially the 16:9 ratio mode and the spot focus/exposure setting. I could go on about this camcorder, but lets hear what others have to say. I sorta splurged, considering I'm a college student.. but I feel my investment was well worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Dirty video head
Review: I thought I would like this camera since I had a Sony from a few years ago that got stolen. Sony has gone completely downhill in their quality control and repair departments. After using the camera 3 times a dirty video head message came on. We bought a sony head cleaner and problem kept coming back. Sony repair said to send back and they would pay for shipment from a UPS store. When I got to the UPS store they stated that they had been scrwed by Sony not paying and they needed a fax directly from sony. Calling back and going through about 6 people while at the UPS store they finally told the UPS people that someone had made a mistake and I had to pay to return. I did pay since I wanted for the holidays. The camcorder came back with an invoice that they had repaired a hinge and the same problem immediately came up on the video screen. Nobody did any quality control at the repair site! I spent 2 days trying to get Sony to replace so I would have one for the holiday. After many hours on the phone they are now looking at it again. Did not use for holidays. I bet it will come back still broken!
Never buy Sony again
Rating: 
Summary: Software that comes with it and support are terrible
Review: I'm a software developer of 15+ years, build my own computers, and am a fairly serious amateur photographer, and I CANNOT figure out the Picture Package software that comes with the camera for transferring the video to my computer, a CD, or a DVD. I've spent probably 5-6 hours over 2 days. The Picture Package Auto Video program, which seems to be the only way to capture the video on your computer with Sony's software is using 99% of my 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 cpu when I click on anything in the screen. There is NO online support except a telephone number provided (not even an 800 number) for Pixela User Support.All the reviews said the picture quality was amazing, and I find the camera itself reasonable to use. I love its size, and find the touch screen easy to use after looking up a couple key items. But if I can not transfer the video to the computer with the software and equipment Sony provides, something is VERY wrong. I am well aware I can use other capture software, but as a big Sony fan, I am very disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: medium quality
Review: In short, this is a medium quality camcorder. The picture quality is not great, the recorder is picking up the motor noise and still images are completely useless. The AUTO mode takes the picture or video very dark. You need to adjust the exposure for better picture or video. You cannot do anything about the recorded motor noise. it is always there You cannot print the still images taken with this camcorder (even in 4x6). So if you buy this for the still image,dont wasteyour money and choose with better or theonew/o still pictures. The features are very limited per the canon zseriesof camcorders. Optical zoom is 10x, which is very limited in compare to 20x (Canon) The software works but the VCD creation is very slow with the provided SW. So in short, this camcorder does not deserve what is costs.
Rating:
Summary: Great Video Recorder Horrible Software
Review: The Video Recorder worked fine almost out of the box. The battery needed to be charged. The video replays fine on the screen viewer. However it is impossible to transfer a video from tape to a CD. The documentation also says that it will take "hours" to transfer from a tape to a CD. Sony should be ashamed of including this horrible junk software with their wonderful camcorder. No one wants tape. Tape is just a method for recording. The camera gets 4 stars, the software gets negative 20 stars for all my wasted time. Don't bother installing Picture Perfect software, it will not transfer from tape to CD for videos.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Value and Convenience
Review: This camcorder does an excellent job in normal lighting conditions considering the aperature is about 1/3 as large as my old Sony TRV57. For those people who are complaining about the performance in low-light conditions: What do you expect? It's a "mini" camcorder. The lens is very small so you sacrifice significant light-gathering capability for a nice, small camera. Sony addresses this problem by allowing you to adjust the shutter speed via different recording "modes". So far, I've found the results in low-light acceptable.
I also purchased the DCRHC65 thinking the larger 1/5" CCD would improve the performance in low-light, but it really wasn't noticeable, so I returned it. The overall design of this camera is far superior to the HC65. All input/output cable ports are in easily accessible locations. The built-in lens cover is nice. Longer batter life by virtue of it's smaller power requirements. Nice and compact.
Best feature, IMHO is the analog to digital pass-through, which is really why I decided on this camera. We have dozens of Hi8 analog tape that I ultimately want available on DVDs. I connected my old TRV57 into this camera, connected this camera to my Mac via firewire and iMovie began capturing the digitized analog footage. I just finished creating my first DVD from one of our old Hi8 tapes.
Incidentally, I do not recommend trying to use a PC to capture and edit movies. If you're going to drop some $$$ for a digital camcorder, do yourself a big favour and buy a Mac. The latest operating system for Mac (OS X) is wonderful and comes stock with iMovie and iDVD so you don't have to fight with the lousy video editing software that is included with this camera. You might consider buying some video editing software for your PC instead. Don't. You'll be just wasting your time and money. I've used PCs for 15 years and I'm just amazed at how incredibly inept they are at doing most things related to multimedia. Take my advice and buy a Mac for your video editing. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Very Poor in mixed lighting
Review: This one is going back. My first chance to use it was my daughter's birthday party. While she sat in the living room opening her presents I noticed long white streaks running the entire length of the picture. I thought that maybe they were only on the LCD, but no they were being recorded. Completely ruined the shot. Returned the camera and got another thinking it was defective, nope same problem. The problem stems from the camera's inability to adjust it's gain properly with normal indoor lighting, and a bright light source above it. The light source (a chandelier) doesn't even appear in the picture, but it must be hitting the periphery pixels of the CCD and causing these entire screen long streaks. This was at 3:00 in the afternoon with a window on one side blinds open and a light source above. Not a difficult lighting situation. Very Poor.
Zoom is way to touchy, yes with practice it can be effective, but come on, this is a point and shooter I shouldn't have to be super nimble fingered. Motor noise is loud, don't know if it is picked up on tape as the streaks caused me not to even bother checking. Touch screen is OK, but not the best user interface. Give me a scroll wheel. If anyone is interested I will get you screen shots of what I am talking about. Too bad, it was a nice little package with some neat features.
Rating:
Summary: Excelente compra
Review: Una excelente cámara, de tamaño compacto y muy liviana, posee una imagen nitida y un sonido claro (podría decir de calidad profecional) El nightshot plus excelente más que comparable con un visor de visión noctura. El software es fácil de instalar, no se necesita ser un profecional para lograrlo, es sólo intuición y leer con detenimiento el manual, los efectos digitales están geniales. Es muy silenciosa, la duración de la batería es buena, el zoom óptico es un poco deficiente 10x pero por el tamaño y las demás especificaciones este detalle es facilmente ignorable.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT CAMERA - TERRIBLE SOFTWARE
Review: Well the camera is really good, its our first video digital camera and its fairly easy to use. BUT the software is really bad, i spent 5hrs trying it on my MAC and PC with little success so I read these reviews again and found the solution with another reviewer and used iMovies on Mac to upload video from tape to computer...couldnt be easier..altho doesnt work with USB cable, has to be firewire cable. If you have a PC i feel sorry for you...you need to get different software as recommended by other reviewers. Havent burned to DVD yet...so I'm hoping it'll be easy with the good old MAC...praise Apple!
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