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Sony DCR-DVD610 DVD Handycam Camcorder with 40x Optical Zoom |
The Panasonic looked much sleeker than the Canon, had a nice feel to it, felt a tad heavier as well though, some might find it a bit heavy for its size. The screen looked sharp, the menu system was ok, everything seemed just about fine. But the colors seemed a tad unnatural, and slightly over saturated. I tried to go fiddle with the settings, but I could never get the colors to look natural.
The Sony has a very appealing design, the materials look of high quality, the fit and finish is excellent. Power up is quick, the touch screen is very responsive and so much easier to use compared to the dot sized rocker switch on the Canon. The LCD was sharper, the colors were natural although a tad dull looking (never a bad thing, you can always add saturation later depending on your subject). The camera gains up and down really quickly based on the lighting conditions. Indoor focussing speed is not very good, but it gets there. Quick movements can lead the video to just get out of focus. Nightshot plus is useful only when there is very little light, otherwise it over exposes like crazy. Even if you have bulbs or stuff indoors, you can manage without nightshot plus.
Outdoors video is fantastic, I couldnt see many compression artifacts, details were there, I could make out the leaves on the tree clearly, the colors werent bleeding (A major issue with a previous samsung dvd camcorder i tried). I tried the Memorex DVD-RW format disc and it worked fine. Format takes 6-8 seconds (which is quite fantastic IMO). Finalizing the disc took more than 6 minutes. Not sure if this was because of the media. I will try other discs and see if I see any improvement. One annoying thing with this camera is the pop up message that shows up with you insert a non-sony disc. This can be very misleading since its pretty much just blatant advertising on sony's part saying "Use Sony Media". But it goes away in a few seconds. Ppl might think its an error or that other brand discs are unusable. Another thing is the clever marketting of battery life on the box stating "9 hrs" in a big font and below that in ultra tiny fonts it says "Using F__100 battery, with LCD off). The battery that comes with the camera is the F__50 that manages about 90 minutes of recording time. These sort of marketting schemes are sometimes why I get irritated with Sony. But nevertheless, the product is good. If you are looking for a DVD camcorder in the 300$ range, this is the one to get. If you want a marginal improvement in video quality, the 710 offers a slightly boosted pixel count. I didnt get to see both on a television screen so I cant tell you how much of a difference there is, but on the LCD screen I couldnt tell the difference, which is why I settled for the 610.
Now, for my granddaughter's second birthday, I bought her this video camera. After reading many of the reviews for this and other camcorders on Amazon I picked the Sony DCR-DVD610 because met all of the needs that I had for a camcorder that I would give as a gift:
1. POPULAR. Almost everyone who purchased this item was very happy with it. This was not so with all of the best-selling camcorders, even those at twice the price.
2. EASY. I wanted to get her one that was fairly easy to use. I read the instruction book on-line and felt that this fit the bill.
3. DVDs. It was important to me that it used some sort of DVD as the primary recording media since I feel that it is more archival than tape and more secure than a hard drive only.
4. PRICE. Even though I would have been willing to spend more, I was hoping for something under $400.
I also purchased an accessory kit (which included a bag, an extra battery and 2 DVDs) and then some extra Sony brand DVDs (after reading some of the reviews I decided to stick with the Sony brand in order to avoid the message that pops up when you use a different brand of DVDs).
So far my daughter and her husband have been VERY happy with this gift and I am hoping see some great videos of my beautiful granddaughter who lives several states away.
Sony ACC-DVDH2 Accessory Starter Kit for Handycam, DVD, Camcorders
it does not focus well... the video looks slightly pixelated
I tried multiple recodings, media, and lighting situations without improved performance...
Another feature that I like is the ability to record video either using the mini DVDs or memory stick. I bought a 4Gb memory stick and I am able to record 59 minutes of video in HQ mode. I went on a trip to London and carried mini 3 DVDs which I didn't have to use. Every night I would transfer videos to the laptop in the hotel and start with 59 minutes of video the next day.
One thing I didn't like about the camera was the battery. It should last longer so I bought another with more capacity.
We were able to use it to record her graduation; she used it to record some memories of her brother & sister visiting for the occasion. She was able to operate it easily without confusion, I am not one who can normally be trusted to purchase anything electronic,but; I was able to make this well thought out purchase with the help of comparing similar items on Amazons' website. The value for the price is awesome! I was able to purchase the starter kit & extra discs along with the camcorder for the same price as just the camcorder itself in surrounding stores in my area.
Great camcorder.....preferred it over hard disc camcorder as my father is not that computer savy to use it while this camcorder directly records in dvd as well as it can be stored in memory stick which is having dual purpose...can be used in digital camera as well as the camcorder.
Among the dvd one I preferred this one as its optical zoom is the best when compared to others...710, 810, 910.
In general, what's great about Sony's dvd camcorders is that they really are easy to use and take great family videos. I agree with all the reviews that praise the user friendly just pick-it-up and use it accolades. This review really has to do with what you do with that content and how IMHO the newer model is not an improvement over the older one.
The 610 Sucks because:
-Finalizing a mini dvd on my old one took 30 seconds, this one 7 min! [WTF?!?]
-On the mac, in order to edit the content you need to first rip the dvd with a program like handbrake and then hope imovie imports it with the chapters. A long and tedious process. I was told that the usb port could import the movie content on this 610 model directly-not true!-it shows up as a finalized disc, not a hard drive that you can drag/drop from.
-The screen on my old one was actually better, this one has a lot of glare.
-I could flip the screen so my toddler could see herself on the DVD92 while I looked thru the viewfinder. On this one it does not seem you can use the viewfinder and screen at the same time.
Hope this helps! I am returning this one and trying the Sanyo xacti 1000.
Later that day I sent an e-mail to SONY Customer Service with the same question about the memory stick(can you believe that SONY restricts written questions to 256 characters?). Later that night I was trying to find the function to record to disc and saw the screen prompt for the memory stick. I selected it and it "worked". The next morning I received an e-mail from Sony confirming that video can be recorded on memory stick. SONY also apologized for the misinformation I received.
Eventually I turned the camera over to my son as a gift. He was having more success with it than I until he tried to dub/copy video from the memory stick to a disc. He said he couldn't find the screen prompt as described in the manual.
I thought I might like this camera for myself, but it got to be too frustrating trying to make basic functions work. Both Canon and Panasonic have DVD Camcorders with approx. 40x zooms. I'll take a look at those.
JVC (GZ-MG330) and Panasonic both make HardDrive camcorders that are just above the price of this unit. The number one thing that sends a camcorder to service is being dropped and having a full DVD burner built in a asking for mis-alignment of the heads with any such drop or strong jolt. The JVC is only $40 more on Amazon (That's the price of just 20 one time MiniDVD's.)
I thought this was an enlightened century and didn't even consider that a company might make a product exclusively for use with Microsoft systems, especially without issuing a disclaimer.
Now I have a $300 doorstop.
Without that cability it is still a fine camcorder. The touch screen is very easy to use and easy to learn, the video quality is very good, colors come out looking fine. But the video to memory stick is very nice. We have an 8gb memory stick. It gives roughly 2 hours of high quality video. Good enough for most situations where you are not on a multi-day vacation.
So you record video to the memory stick. Then connect to your computer via the USB port. A utility comes up with literally one touch copying to a DVD-R. DVD-Rs full size are very cheap. The memory stick works like an R-W disc. And 8gb for instance is much better than even a dual layer capacity. Works out to about 3 dual layer discs. So on most days you do not even need to buy DVDs. But on a vacation you have the flexibility of bringing as many discs as you want.
Finalizing discs does take sometime so it is nice to have 2 hours of capability without having to finalize. Recording straight to DVD we had no problem playing it back on a very old, at least 7 years DVD player.
I am giving it 4 stars because in the wide mode it seems to well widen people even when playing on an HD 16/9 set. Not sure if it is me or the camera but it is annoying.
Bottomline good camcorder with very easy to use and extremely useful hybrid recording.
Couple of updates after vacations. More pleased with the camera now. The video looked good with the exception of too much shake at high zooms. If you think you will be zooming a lot I would suggest one of those mini-tripods. Finalizing CDs took 2 minutes time after time. Not bad. Getting video from the memory stick onto full-sized CDs, not a problem.
Best of all because we were on a long-trip we went down from the highest video quality to standard to get more per tape. No noticable drop off on quality. Lastly on our 16:9 HD TV the width now comes out correctly. Colors were remarkably accurate, friends and family all commented positively on the quality.
As I mentioned though, the zoom does shake. So that brings me to my final advice. I bought this one over the 710 or 810 because of the higher optical zoom. But that is not as functional as I thought, at least without a tripod. The 710 and 810 have more pixels on the sensors and that should lead to better video quality. Something to think about. However very pleased with this little guy. Great results.
Only thing that took some getting used to was finding a smooth position to hold it so the pic doesn't jump. This is because the unit is small and tends to move when you reach for the zoom. I'm guessing this is common with all hand-helds, though.
Finalizing a disc to be ready for regular DVD Player use was simple and quick. 2 minutes for a full 30 minute disk. Automatically makes a menu of all of your segments. (everytime you stop and start, it's a new segment) I HIGHLY recommend this point and shoot video cam.
There are no cons, it's just a great camcorder.
With every Sony product that I buy my satisfaction of their quality gets better and better. Their quality is really unbeatable. Their products are usually slightly more expensive than other brands, but trust me it's worth it. (my Sony tv is almost 10 years old and works like it's brand new, it's held up fantastically)
I am very pleased. This is the first time I have had a camcorder.
I agree!
The camcorder comes with a "Tutorial Video Shooting" DVD that walks you through how to get the most out of your camera. It's pretty cheesey (especially the English version, wow), but whatever. :P I'm guessing it's translated from a different language? Haha.
Anyway, the zoom on this is AMAZING. It's like I can get MACRO shots while standing across the room!! Wow, right?! That was some high quality chin stubble (from the test shots I took, lol!).
It's always good to get a few starter mini-dvd's, just so you have more room to play around. That way, when you mess one up, you won't feel bad!
The camera is super-light, by the way. I only way 95lbs, and I'm definitely NOT athletic. But this was incredibly easy to operate! I wanted to get something small and portable, so this is definitely a great option for me.
Oh, and the "night-shot plus" mode is awesome! It takes good low-light shots with the normal settings, but you can set your camera to brighten up the shot with the touch of a button, or switch the "night shot plus" mode on! It takes video in ABSOLUTE DARKNESS. It's like NIGHT mode. It's intense. I turned off all of my lights and tested it out (complete darkness), and it lit everything up like magic! It doesn't use an actual LIGHT, so you can definitely creep around in the dark and test it out. LOL.
You can film your FRIENDS in the dark. Haha.
I definitely wanna' use this at parties!
Right now, I'm looking into getting the starter kit on Amazon (it comes with a battery, a carrying case, a DVD+RW and DVD-R disc-set. The battery alone costs over $50, so the prices you can get through Amazon are amazing! I'll need a tripod too (which I'm also working on getting!).
I suggest picking up these items as well as a wall-charger for your battery (just in case you plan to go out and need to charge your extras!). :D
Thanks Sony for making such great products!
That being said, the optics are excellent, the digital zoom is excellent (though, as cautioned in the manual, at higher zoom levels you lose picture quality), and the camera itself is very solid. About the only complaint I have with it is that if the mini-DVD you're using is not Sony-branded, it has a little nag screen that last for a second, but disappears without any user interaction (you can probably get rid of that somehow, but I haven't bothered to find out).
You will want both a memory stick and DVDs for the camera. You will probably also want to buy a longer-lasting battery. Video at night is very possible, but if you're focusing on a distant object (such as the moon) you'll want to zoom out and back in if you've just adjusted your tripod, etc. - as the autofocus will sometimes judge the distance incorrectly, and lose focus.
Literally, those are the only bad things I can think of about this camera. :)