Sony DCRDVD101 DVD Camcorder

Rating:
Summary: Great if you know your stuff or are willing to learn
Review: Both reviews I've read on this product seem scattered and incoherent, so let me see if I can clear-up some of the misconceptions about Sony's DVD camcorder 101. I've had mine for 6 months now and am getting used to it. Despite what you might hear about the DVD format, this isn't an easy piece of equipment to use. You will have to put some time (translate: hours) into the learning process involved in using the camcorder and the powerful but heavy-on-the-steps PIXELA ImageWriter software that works with the camera.
For me, the camera works great...it does just what the manual says it will do and it does it well. I find the images to be clean and clear, the sound to be excellent, and the buttons and internal program to be logical and understandable. Buy an extra battery and a filter to protect the Zeiss lense-aftermarket products should cost you less than $100 for both and well worth it. I was under the impression that I could just plug my MiniDVD into a drive and burn right away to peripheral DVD drive-just like with Video copying-BUT I was wrong. You have to download everything to your computer hard-drive (and you better have lots of space!), then edit it, then you can make a copy. This process yields a clean product but, yikes, it takes alot of time and effort. Hopefully, some future software package will just automatically cover the many steps necessary to burn a simple DVD. In the meantime, you guessed it, manual keyboard labor!
Now, the Pixela software is another story; It's complicated and confused the heck out of me. It's designed to be universal in format, hence, not words just icons! But, again, once you learn the language of the program you can get it to do what you want, but be prepared to sweat it out and make lots of silly errors before you land in the world of ImageMixer extraordinnaire...
Now, I'm having lots of fun with the camcorder. It's handy and small and the stabilizer works better than I imagined. But, be forewarned that the doggone stuff is complicated to transfer and is best suited for the computer-literate geek!

Rating:
Summary: Great for Plug and Play People
Review: I just borrowed my friend's Sony 101 to covert my analog footage to DVD and I thought that it worked great. After converting all my old analog home movies to DVD I thought I would take it out for a spin and see how well it records overall.
It takes great pictures and allows you to save them directly to your DVD vs forcing you to download the images to your computer. I was also able to preview the video footage before I finalized the DVD. You also just hook the Camcorder up to the TV to view your films instead of downloading them to your computer. If you are more interested in watching your home movies vs editing them, then this could be a good camcorder for you.


Rating:
Summary: Not Recommended!!
Review: I received the camera as a gift from my mother, so it is difficult to complain - however, I am very unhappy.

The ImageMaker Pixela software is terrible. It is not user friendly at all. I tried to use Microsoft Movie Maker but you must first download the images in the Pixela software. The the movie images have to be converted - it takes many steps to actually be able to send mom a movie (with two kids, never!!)

The still images are so grainy that I am embarassed to show anyone that they came from the camera that was purchased for $800.00. I read the directions thousands of times to try to see if I was doing something wrong, and the directions are not worth the paper that they are printed on. I called Sony and asked for assistance and they troubleshot the camera with me. They asked me to push buttons that did not exist. The tech support people had no clue and said that for $250.00 I could send the camera to them and they would look at it.

I don't think so!! Time is flying by and I am not able to take even decent pictures of my family with the camera. I am hoping that someone buys me a different camera for Xmas and I can sell this one on Ebay!

Rating:
Summary: Great Camcorder, Great Value
Review: This camera has been great. Camera records around 30 minutes on premium video quality and longer at medium to low quality. Easy to use and nice to have ready to watch DVDs