Sony DCR-SR68 80GB Hard Disk Drive Handycam Camcorder

Sony hard drive camcorder Click here –>

Technical Details

• 80GB Hard disk drive (up to 61hrs in LP mode)
• 60X Optical / 2000X Digital Zoom
• Professional quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens
• 2.7″ Clear Photo LCD (230 K) display
• Direct Copy to external HDD w/o PC

Pros
1. Small size, you can carry in Pants pocket
2. Provision to use SDHC card instead of the “Sony’s own” memory stick duo only. I have not used one yet though.
3. LCD is very clear and sharp (good resolution), and it responds well to the touch.
4. Video transfer is quick and easy once the basic Sony software is installed. I would use some other software to edit it though.
5. 80 GB storage space is great
6. The Sony software has a calendar to see events on a chronological order, that looks great if you are time conscious about the video
Overall I am not satisfied with this camcorder. I will return it soon.

Cons
1. Picture quality is very poor, Indoor and outdoor pictures in good light appear with a bluish tint all over. If you wear a white /gray cloth it appears bluish on video. Like wise the sunlight coming inside your house through window /blinds all appears light blue!! Even with good lighting the quality of images are very bad, lacks sharpness, This in comparison to my old Panasonic PV GS120 is not even close to true color. If you view the pictures on a TV screen it will definitely appear lacking the sharpness. If you are transferring the video to computer using the supplied software it appears very blurry and grainy.
2. There is no way you can charge the battery when camcorder is in use even if there is a spare battery because the battery charging is done hooking up the AC adapter to the camcorder! This seems really stupid. Sony could have made a battery slot on the AC adapter to do this.
3. There is no separate viewfinder. So if the LCD is broken- everything is gone.
4. Audio quality does not seem to be that good but average.
5. I can not find the resolution of the camera for still shots, nothing is mentioned in the manual either. You can not shoot a still picture while recording the video, you have to capture it from the video shots already made. Yea the resolution does not matter in that case.
6. Battery life approximately less than an hour
7. The LED for lighting seems silly

3 basic needs,

1.I wanted something compact,
2. I wanted the capability to take pictures.
3. I wanted it to have a night vision light.

This camera is one of the most compact, even smaller than I expected. You would think these 3 things would be easy to find in many cameras at a decent price range, but they were not! So how did this fair up? 2. It’s picture taking ability I was least impressed with. It was pretty grainy.
3. The night vision light was pretty weak, but hey I expected that for such a small camera. The battery life with the standard battery was about avg.
4 hrs. As far as working the camera, it was VERY simple, figured it out in 5 minutes w/o reading instructions, needless to say, there are VERY few menu screens, touch screen is kinda nice, but would also liked to have the capability to tape w/the viewfinder closed. All in all, i’m pretty happy w/the purchase, just don’t buy it if you want it to take good pictures, i’ve had phones that took clearer pictures.