Sony DCR-SR40 30GB Hard Disk Drive Handycam with 20x Optical Zoom

This camcorder does capture good video. But the main drawback is that it records in MPEG2 format (DVD quality). Initially its nice and easy to capture video and watch 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 notice that your videos aren't so great as you expect 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 find the major drawback of this camcorder. The MPEG2 quality video is not good 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 used to compress large 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 much 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 look ugly and pixelated.

In summary please don't buy 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 watch your unedited footage forever, then go for it.

That said, if you still think you want to go for this camcorder, please read the review on its other features:

1. Super NightShot Infrared System: Not a useful feature. Its amazining to initially see how this camcorder is able to "see" 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 look like devil.

2. 2.5-inch wide SwivelScreen LCD display with touch panel capabilities: Sony convenietly "forgot" to mention that this screen is NOT widescreen. Most of the camcorders now-a-days come with widescreen LCD. Its a good 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 current LCD/Plasma TVs are widescreen. You can future proof your video by shooting widescreen. This camcorder DOES support widescreen video but the LCD is NOT widescreen. So when you shoot widescreen, you see black bands on the top and bottom.

3. Digital still photos: Please don't rely on this feature. The best photos from this camcorder as as good as the worst photos from any popular digital camera. Technology has still not matured to the point where a camcorder can shoot as good as a digital camera and vice versa.

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

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

6. Super SteadyShot picture stabilization system: Good enough to avoid small vibrations caused when going on a ship for example. But not good enough for the shakes encountered when walking with the camcorder. Don't expect to get great footage in such conditions. For great footage, you must still rely on a steady hand or a tripod.

7. On-screen zoom and record buttons: Not an useful feature. The camcorder tends to shake more when you use 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: Good interface. Fast enough to download 30 GB in 1.5 hours. Firewire interface would have been great. But USB 2.0 is also good 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: Great 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 get 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 worry 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 think this is a very useful feature. Its always better to download to computer, and burn only the good files and photos to DVD instead of burning all of them.

Overall summary. Buy this camcorder only if you are not serious about editing the videos. Its a good buy for point-and-shoot-and-view pleasure only. In my opinion, a mini-DV camcorder (DCRHC42 for example) is still a better bet than a DVD or hard drive based model. The only inconvenience 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 still provides good value for money as its far cheaper than DVD or hard-drive models.

It's interesting 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 purchase (or at least make an educated purchase).

This is a very easy camera to use. Start up time is very quick, and how can you beat the silent operation of a hard drive based camcorder? The touch screen is also very easy to use, but I can easily see 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 low light situations, you suffer from a lack of full color range. An accessory shoe could allow the use of a light, which would add more useability to this unit.

Connectivity is also good. I was able to mount the drive in both Windows and Linux with ease. Videos are stored as MPEG-2, which is pretty universal, just drop them into your video editor of choice. The included software is little more than basic, allowing you to backup your movies, or quickly create simple DVDs. Those with a desire to make quality DVDs will find other software packages better suited to their needs, such as Cyberlink's PowerProducer.

Focus is very good 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 just don't go in that direction.

Video, in all three record modes, is saved in 720x480 resolution, and there's a handy button right on the main menu that allows you to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. However, image quality isn't as sharp as that in most high-end MiniDV camcorders. Much detail is resolved, but it lacks the sharpness required to make very sharp movies. There's also very little 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 good and very useable camcorder. However, like all HDD camcorders, a certain level of organization is required, or you might find yourself looking to record some good memories, only to find the hard drive is full and you're nowhere near your computer to free up some space.

In all, though, it's a great entry-level hard disk drive camcorder for people who want to make videos to upload to the net, or the casual camcorder user. This is also very well suited for vacationing, where baggage space is critical!

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I bought this for my wife who teaches music and occasionally needs a camcorder to record the musical events. I filmed in low light from the back 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 notice prior to purchase which are not show stoppers but would have influenced my decision about this camera: No USB connection on the camera. You have to put it into the docking station 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 start charging this again is not a show stopper but somewhat of a hassle for me.

I really like the camera but these two small things distract me from an excellent rating.

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The reason I pick this camcorder is because it is hard disk drive and it is way cheaper than its upper level product DCR-SR60. The camcorder is small, cool looking, easy to use but poor image qualiy. Before I bought it, I did some research. Lots of online reviews for this camcorder mentioned the image quality is poor, I just didn't think it would be that poor. I can tell this, my Canon digital camera takes better videos than this camcorder. I also found out this camcorder does take still picture, but in a very poor quality. My Logitach Quickcam takes better still picture than it. I was actually disappointed of Sony, I cannot believe they can even produce poor video quality camcorder like this and sell for $500+.

For me to choose a camcorder, video quality matter the most. Others may not. Hence, If you can accept poor quality video but pay more attentions to other features, this camcorder maybe your choice. However for me, I returned the next day. I may buy DCR-SR100 which sells $300 more, I think there is a reason.

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most ppl buy too much camcorder and pay for capabilities they will never use. I am using the camcorder for home movies, and frankly dont have the time to do any major editing to make productions out of them. This is perfect for me. Movie quality is good ..more than enough for my purposes.

Had I needed to do massive editing, I would have gont a step or 2 above, but they key for me was quality of product, easy of use, quality of film.

I have a sony digicam for stills and do not intend to take stills with this. even the best camcorder stills are not at par with avg digicam stills so why pay extra to get marginally better still shot capability.