First consumer HD camcorder

This camera is really your only option right now for consumer HD video recording. The price is fairly steep due to the lack of competition, but it isn't unreasonable. The camcorder records video in 1080i HDV format on regular miniDV cassettes.

The camera is very compact and stylish, unlike the more expensive 'prosumer' HD models. There aren't many buttons; all of the menus and settings are accessed through the LCD touchscreen, which is a little small, but works pretty good.

The camera has variable rate optical zoom, and there is also additional digital zoom, which is disabled by default. The autofocus works fairly well, but manual focus is also available. The night shot feature works really good also. You can see in total darkness, I've only tried it at close range though.

The bitrate is the same as standard DV cameras (since HDV uses MPEG2 compression) so the tapes are the same, and you can record for the same amount of time. The video quality is very good; there is an easily noticeable difference over a standard dv camera. The camera's hd video resolution is 1440 x 1080 interlaced, which is a little less than the usual 1920 x 1080, but it still looks good. I guess this is a good compromise so that existing miniDV tapes can be used.

A component video cable is included to connect to hdtv sets. The camera has a standard IEEE 1394a firewire interface, but no cables or software/support is included. There is no DVI. There isn't much documentation on the firewire interface; the manual just tells you to use 3rd party video editing software. Windows XP sp2 will install the drivers for the camera, but you'll need to provide software to download the HDV video. The camera will downconvert the video to regular DV if you don't have the software (or a hdtv set), but this defeats the purpose of the hd camera. The files are about 11GB per hour of video, so it won't fit on a regular dvd without some type of additional compression. The camera can also record to tape from the IEEE 1394 interface, but I haven't tried this yet.

The battery life isn't great; I wasn't able to record a full tape on the included battery, so I'd plan on the additional cost of a second battery. Unfortunately, Sony makes it very difficult to use aftermarket batteries in their cameras, so plan on paying a lot for batteries. Also, a stand alone charger is not included so you can't charge one battery while using another.

In addition to video, the camcorder also takes good still pictures. They are recorded on to a 'Memory Stick DUO' which isn't compatible with regular memory sticks. There is a built in flash, as well as a connector for an external flash. I should add that I cannot figure out how to retract the flash though, and this isn't mentioned in the manual. The included memory stick will hold about 20 pictures, which isn't impressive, but I guess this isn't as important as it would be on a digital still camera. One nice feature is that you can record still pictures on the memory stick from the video that you took earlier. Unfortunately though, this only works when playing at full speed (not in slow motion or paused) so it is difficult to get action shots.

Overall, this is a great camera for those who need HD quality now. If you don't care about HD quality though, this camera will be a waste of money. Also if you can wait a year or two, the price will probably come down a lot and there will probably be a lot more options available.