Sony SNY-DCRSR40 Prices, Reviews, Sales, Compare

Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

Product: Sony SNY-DCRSR40

List Price: No List Price Available
Average customer review:

Amazon Price: Too low to display
Click Here To See Amazon Sale Price
Add to cart to see low price@

Availability: In Stock
Usually ships in 24 Hours
Free Shipping Available

This camcorder does seize grand video. But the main drawback is that it records in MPEG2 format (DVD quality) . Initially its nice and easy to pick video and leer it on your computer by downloading the files using the USB 2.0 connection. It gives you instant gratification. But after capturing 4 or 5 hours of video, you will glance that your videos aren't so gigantic as you seek information from it to be. Its not the fault with your camcorder. Its because all of us shoot extra footage, unwanted scenes, shakes, etc which we want to edit. You may want to add a title or two, add transitions, add backgroud music, combine your photos with the video, etc. Basically you may want to edit your footage. Its here when you gather the major drawback of this camcorder. The MPEG2 quality video is not marvelous for editing. The video quality is so compressed that you won't have sufficient bandwidth to edit the video.

MPEG2 is a LOSSY compression technique weak to compress great video files into smaller files that can be fit into a 4 GB or 8 GB DVD. Since the camcorder compresses the video and then writes to the hard disk, the source file that you download to your computer is already compressed and has lost worthy of its data during the compression. If you edit this already compressed file, you lose more data during the process thus resulting in poorer video quality.

When you edit these videos, add some transitions or special effects, increase/decrease brigthness or noise, etc, the newly edited video loses further clarity and thus makes your video peep terrifying and pixelated.

In summary please don't consume this camcorder if you are serious about your videos and would like to edit them. But if you are not bothered about editing and want to glance your unedited footage forever, then go for it.

That said, if you level-headed consider you want to go for this camcorder, please read the review on its other features:

1. Well-kept NightShot Infrared System: Not a useful feature. Its amazining to initially explore how this camcorder is able to "view" using infrared light. But the moment you shoot your subject using infrared light, you never want to shoot again as they will appear like devils when shot using this infrared light. Remember infrared footage appears almost black-and-white and not color. And the subject's eyes really contemplate like devil.

2. 2.5-inch wide SwivelScreen LCD present with touch panel capabilities: Sony convenietly "forgot" to mention that this veil is NOT widescreen. Most of the camcorders now-a-days approach with widescreen LCD. Its a splendid feature if you always want to shoot in widescreen. In fact I would suggest you to shoot in widescreen only as all future TVs and modern LCD/Plasma TVs are widescreen. You can future proof your video by shooting widescreen. This camcorder DOES benefit widescreen video but the LCD is NOT widescreen. So when you shoot widescreen, you perceive sunless bands on the top and bottom.

3. Digital smooth photos: Please don't rely on this feature. The best photos from this camcorder as as kindly as the worst photos from any well-liked digital camera. Technology has aloof not matured to the point where a camcorder can shoot as ample as a digital camera and vice versa.

4. 20x optical/120x digital zoom: Optical zoom is very splendid. You can handle upto 10X optical zoom without a tripod. Any more zoom requires the expend of a tripod. I was able to zoom in and read a car price from the top of Sears tower, Chicago. I adore the zoom feature in this camcorder. Don't expend the digital zoom feature. Turn it off. As mentioned above, MPEG2 compression already makes the video unpleasant in quality. The digital zoom further makes it worst.

5. Professional-quality Carl Zeiss lens: Yes its friendly. The image quality is truly immense. No doubt about it.

6. Dapper SteadyShot describe stabilization system: Satisfactory enough to avoid itsy-bitsy vibrations caused when going on a ship for example. But not generous enough for the shakes encountered when walking with the camcorder. Don't demand to win gigantic footage in such conditions. For sizable footage, you must composed rely on a right hand or a tripod.

7. On-screen zoom and represent buttons: Not an useful feature. The camcorder tends to shake more when you consume these zoom buttons on the LCD because the LCD is always projecting outside when shooting video. Hence you shake the camcorder more when you touch the LCD than when you touch the camcorder's body.

8. USB 2.0 interface: Qualified interface. Quickly enough to download 30 GB in 1.5 hours. Firewire interface would have been mammoth. But USB 2.0 is also fine enough

9. Image Mixer Software: Very useless software. The free Picasa software from Google is far better in organizning your videos and pictures than the software that comes with this camera. Forget about this software.

10. InfoLithium battery with AccuPower meter system: Ample battery life. I could shoot for upto 1 hour 20 minutes with one battery. Remember we always don't shoot continously in everyday life. We turn the camcorder on and off repeatedly when shooting. This battery last for 1 hour 20 minutes during normal shooting as explained above. If you shoot continously you may fetch longer battery life.

11. NOTE: This camcorder does NOT have an Active Interface shoe. Other Sony camcorders do have this feature. This allows you to add other Sony accessories, for example, extra flood light. If you are not planning to add any accessory, then don't inconvenience about the absence of this feature.

12. DVDDirect compatibility: This feature allows you to directly burn your video and photos to DVD. I don't assume this is a very useful feature. Its always better to download to computer, and burn only the pleasant files and photos to DVD instead of burning all of them.

Overall summary. Rob this camcorder only if you are not serious about editing the videos. Its a genuine take for point-and-shoot-and-view pleasure only. In my thought, a mini-DV camcorder (DCRHC42 for example) is mild a better bet than a DVD or hard drive based model. The only worry in a mini-DV model is that you have to be a bit techy to download video to computer. If you are ok with that, the mini-DV aloof provides valid value for money as its far cheaper than DVD or hard-drive models.

It's exciting how people will give this a really crappy review based upon one feature, or upon the fact that they didn't RTFM before making a choose (or at least acquire an educated bewitch) .

This is a very easy camera to employ. Initiate up time is very fast, and how can you beat the soundless operation of a hard drive based camcorder? The touch cover is also very easy to exhaust, but I can easily contemplate how it can annoy some people, especially those who don't like fingerprints on screens.

Nightshot mode, as always, is an added bonus, but this camcorder could have better benefited by an accessory shoe - though nightshot is fun in extreme light situations, you suffer from a lack of paunchy color range. An accessory shoe could allow the exhaust of a light, which would add more useability to this unit.

Connectivity is also superior. I was able to mount the drive in both Windows and Linux with ease. Videos are stored as MPEG-2, which is ravishing universal, objective fall them into your video editor of choice. The included software is dinky more than basic, allowing you to backup your movies, or rapid obtain simple DVDs. Those with a desire to do quality DVDs will come by other software packages better friendly to their needs, such as Cyberlink's PowerProducer.

Focus is very satisfactory in normal situations, but suffers noticeably in lower light, as does auto exposure settings. Though the camcorder does have manual settings, forget about setting it up for lower-light (higher aperatures) . The settings fair don't go in that direction.

Video, in all three characterize modes, is saved in 720x480 resolution, and there's a handy button legal on the main menu that allows you to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. However, image quality isn't as enchanting as that in most high-end MiniDV camcorders. Mighty detail is resolved, but it lacks the sharpness required to perform very lively movies. There's also very limited noticeable degradation in image quality switching between HQ and SP modes, though LP mode has a very noticeable change in detail and color noise in lower light.

Overall, this is a very great and very useable camcorder. However, like all HDD camcorders, a obvious level of organization is required, or you might pick up yourself looking to picture some suitable memories, only to glean the hard drive is fat and you're nowhere advance your computer to free up some place.

In all, though, it's a colossal entry-level hard disk drive camcorder for people who want to gain videos to upload to the gather, or the casual camcorder user. This is also very well satisfactory for vacationing, where baggage site is considerable!

I bought this for my wife who teaches music and occasionally needs a camcorder to represent the musical events. I filmed in outrageous light from the wait on of the room with only spotlights on the cast of the musical and both my wife and I were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the output. However; several things I did not gaze prior to retract which are not explain stoppers but would have influenced my decision about this camera: No USB connection on the camera. You have to set aside it into the docking place for the USB transfer of files to your computer. And the only other thing is that if you are running the camera off the power cord plugged into the wall - it will not charge the battery. You can switch the camera off and the battery will inaugurate charging - this again is not a display stopper but somewhat of a hassle for me.

I really like the camera but these two little things distract me from an good rating.

Share and Enjoy: