Rating: 
Summary: Quality yes, but the rest....
Review: I think it's only fair for potential buyers to know about the bad/poor things about PC100e : 1) If your travel a lot and do not need a digital camera function, this one is not for you 2) Most buttons are too small. Function such as fading/overlaping arent easy to activate once you are recording. They will cause you to shake the camera. Sony should design bigger button or allow pre-defined function before recording begins. 3) Photo capturing button is so small and next to yet another button. It is confusing and you will need to use your index finger to press, which will tilt the camera. Unless you use 2 hands...but why shall we? Sony should have designed to use the same button as the camcoder REC button, afterall when you switch to "Memory"=Digital Camera mode, one can only capture digital still image. This design will also allow them to save production cost for the extra buttons. 4) Should allow direct PC/Camcoder connection for still images ether using UBS/Serial connection like the Panasonic. Instead, Sony gives us bulky serial adapter for the memory stick which requires yet another separate power supply. Imaging that many things to carry. 5) When you use the DV tape to record still images, it only allows you to store 640x480 resolution. This is no mega pixels. Sony never mentions that until you buy the unit and read the one liner in the manual. BEWARE! 6) Lousy manual. First the terms Sony uses for each function are so confusing. Then Sony combines English and Greek (I think) into one manual. Sometime you can see 1 page with 2 languages sharing the same diagram. I wonder why they want to save a couple of pages. 7) A cheap camera these days come with a bag. Why Sony does not give a less than ($) bag with their top rage DV Cam? 8) The power supply for the camera is so big it's amusing to me. Sony should know people travel with at least the AC Adaper! Though light but size still matters.May be all the rest of the DV Cams will have the similar problems, but my advise is if you travel a lot and do not care about the "still" image resolution at 1 Mega (Sony PC100's 1Mega offer so so quality anyway), save your money but the cheaper Sony 5E or Panasonic DC55/99 which offer 0.8 Mega Pixels still image camputuring capability. They offer just the best quality of video images at a much cheaper price. My general comment on Sony is they have good engineers to design quality solid built products, but once come to design for ease of use or see what people really need, .... My fitt Sony is a DVD player which comes with almost similar problem. After this Camcoder, I swear there will not be another Sony in my life. Life should be easy!
Rating: 
Summary: Sony DCR-PC100 is fantastic.
Review: I wanted to add information to complement some of the other reviews. I, like most of the other reviewers, am very impressed with the PC100. Before buying I did a lot of research and read reviews from many websites, including this one. Three issues have been mentioned that I have not found to be a problem. 1. Some people comment that the sound recorded by the built-in microphone picks up the hum from the camera motor. I agree that there is a loud hum coming from the camera when the camera is operating, and you can hear it if you play the tape back in the camera using the on board speaker. However, when I play my tapes back through a television, the sound is outstanding (and there is no hum). 2. The second reportedly unfortunate feature is the zoom control, which is supposedly placed awkwardly. Now, I don't have very large hands, so that may be a difference, but if you hold the camera as illustrated in the manual (i.e., like a water pistol), with your third, fourth and little finger curled around the camera's base, your index finger sits directly on the telephoto button. I have no trouble using it. If you try to jam all your fingers vertically up through the strap and hold it like a regularly sized camcorder, it won't work well at all. 3. People also complain about the size and placement of the buttons. The buttons seem fine to me. I don't have to do anything extraordinary to press them. I once hit the backlight button by mistake because of its position near the standby/record button. It made a gathering I was filming look as if God had just walked in, but an icon appeared immediately in the viewfinder informing me of what had happened. I quickly turned it off and contined filming. I have never made that mistake again, now that I know what to look out for. I would recommend this camcorder without reservation.
Rating: 
Summary: picture
Review: I woul like to see a picture of the product
Rating: 
Summary: A high quality camcorder
Review: I'm using this recorder (type PC100E) in combination with StudioDV software from Pinnacle. I'm satisfied, easy handling and understanding. Anybody who can help me with tips and tricks for non-linear editing please e-mail me.
Rating:
Summary: It's simply great.
Review: I've been looking at DV cameras for a while now, and finally settled on the DCR-PC100. I couldn't be happier about my decision. I've made some great movies with it, but I think the best example of the flexibility of this camera came when I went to a wedding last week. Every control on the camera is placed in such a manner that one handed operation of the camera is a snap, and I was able to get the ceremony on video, while easily switching over to capture some stills as well. I had a 64MB memory stick, so I had about 120 hi-res pictures by the end of the reception. It was a snap to dump all of the pictures to a CD and send them to the wedding party to print at their leisure(they were thrilled to have some wedding pictures that they could share with folks that quickly after the wedding). I've used the camera in a wide range of lighting conditions, from super bright sunny days to inside the Monterey Bay Aquarium to a lightning storm in Colorado, and all of the footage turns out great. The video images are super crisp and the colors are nothing short of fantastic. I can't recommend the camera highly enough, and most people who check mine out while I'm using it want one of their own.
Rating:
Summary: It will impress your neighbors!
Review: I've had this beauty for a couple of months now and I would definitely buy it again. A lot is included in the package but keep in mind that you will need additional accessories to make the camcorder fully useful. You will need the Flash/Light combination and also a larger memory stick to take full advantage of megapixel quality - the one that is included (4MB) will only hold six high-quality pictures. The battery is small but it will last you forever - I never use my second one. Finally, be aware of the fact that Sony will release the updated PC110 in September, 2000 which will have a built-in Flash and will record short MPEGs to the stick. Will it ever come to the States? Will you be able to wait for so long? You will surely pay more. Go for PC100 instead.
Rating:
Summary: it's a good product - but....
Review: It leaves you wanting more and also leaves you with the feeling that Sony isn't fascinated with customer satisfaction. We have all known for a while about Sony's propensity towards proprietary formats such as memory sticks, the batteries, just about any accessory and so on and we understand that this is a price that comes with the product. It is a great product, but Sony has left me longing for several things that I'll never be able to get.. Examples: It ships with a 4mb memory stick which holds a whopping 6 still images at full resolution (16-32MB should be the min they ship and they should phase out the 4MB sticks). The fact that they shipped an antiquated serial adaptor for memory sticks with the product seems like a slowly developing joke (why not ship with the USB Card reader?). It uses firewire as it's main way of transmitting video - (ok if you are on a Mac) and then they suggest a $400 capture card when you can buy others with software for under $100. Sony being cheap on the memory sticks, battery and serial adaptor all make sense until you realize how hard they gouge you on these propriety formats - and then makes a bit grumpy. What makes you even more grumpy is that Sony just released the DCR PC 110 - which offers USB connectivity, and MPEG video compression down to the memory stick - the two things (excluding peripherals) that would have made this camera just about perfect. With all of the negatives out of the system - this is a really great camcorder - compact, easy to use, picture and sound quality are beyond compare, night vision is great, it's feature packed and full of surprises. Out of the box you can record like a pro for hours, the battery info, tape time remaining and a host of other features are just great - so for recording video you can not go wrong with this unit and if you are on a Mac or already have a firewire card - even better. If not - look @ the Sony DCR PC 110 b/c I'm kinda steamed that I'm stuck with the 100 that has now been phased out..
Rating:
Summary: question
Review: Itry to find out if this product is coming in Pall/Secam sistem for Europe???? and how much will cost??
Rating:
Summary: Sony Style!
Review: Ive had this camera for 9 months, and I have grown very attached to it. I've beat the crap out of it and it still works fine, a good sign. It fits in ones hand like a crazy optical-recepting hand gun. After time and experimenting, one grows accustomed to its grip and it's small size makes the human subjects less nervous, almost as if no video camera is there, just a miniscule receptor of their realtime image. If you have a friend with one of these too (Scheeronious), you can firewire the 2 cameras together and do some improvisational editing and recording of footage, easily. infrared night-vison, with "old movie" to make night shots mystical... overlap fading face-morphing, Luminscennt effects. Manual exposure adjusting to tweak the lighting, in conjuction with slow-shutter surrealism. >>> The camera give you a lot of room to play. I use the memory stick all the time to capture stills off my prerecorded footage. I like the small 640x480 jpegs, its easier to work with in photoshop, transfers quick, save-em-stright-to-floppy or email-em size. If one really wants high quality pics one has to capture the live still straight to the stick. raltime capture even makes a simulated digital "cli-click" sound of an SLR camera when you hit the photo button. Sony style at its best. This camera is great on an airplane, to watch all your old movies in-transit, and catch stills off of them. If you really wanted to, you could easily record tv, movies etc.., and watch it on this camera on the plane almost like a MiniDVD player. Problems: 1. You can't use fader and digital effects at the same time. 2. You can't activate digital effects with the LCD closed. 3. The built-in microphone doesn't pick up low bass frequencies real well. 3. upgrade this camera with a wide angle lens, and extended life battery, and 32 meg stick. Wide angle is a must, it creates a more immersive viewer experience.
Rating:
Summary: I love this handy-sized marvel
Review: Nine months ago, I had to upgrade my old (but clunky) Video-8 camcorder. After a lot of research, I almost didn't settle for this camera, because although most owners loved it and it seemed to have the best image quality in the class, it is rather expensive. Looking at my savings account, and remembering that the Video-8 didn't get used much because of its heft, I took the plunge. The small size makes this an excellent camera to bring with you in a sport jacket pocket, briefcase, or even jeans pocket (if you're into those large raver-style pockets, that is). While many of the buttons are small, I don't mind much, because the few I use (start/stop, exposure control) are logically placed and easy to push. I don't use any of the digital effects or fade functions, because I transfer the video digitally to my computer and edit tape there -- something I never got around to with the old clunker. I also don't use the still image capture much at all, because I have a separate Kodak digital camera for that, and the memory stick reader that comes with this camcorder is S-L-O-W (because it's serial-only). If you have one of those VAIO machine with a built-in memory stick reader, I suppose it would be OK. Transfer of video using the built-in FireWire (1394, i-Link, DV-gate, ...) port works very well, and I haven't had any problems getting this camera recognized by my computer. The battery life is also amazing. The standard (slim!) battery lasts for more than two hours -- the larger medium-sized battery (which I use most of the time) gives you FIVE HOURS of running time. If you can *at all* afford this camcorder, and don't need the extra image quality of an (expensive, bulky) three-CCD camera then get this one.
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