Sony DCR-SR300 6.1MP 40GB Hard Disk Drive Handycam Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom by Sony
|
List Price: Our Price: $498.99 You Save: $601.00 (55%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Digital Camera See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Sony DCR-SR300 6.1MP 40GB Hard Disk Drive Handycam Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom
Digital camera Review: GOOD CAMCORDER...
Summary: 4 Stars
It is a good camcorder but it has the following problems:
1.- the battery life is very poor, you must buy another battery.
2.- the pictures that you take in movie option, are very diffuse.
Digital camera Review: Much better quality than previous cameras
Summary: 5 Stars
I am using this camera to record indoor sporting events. I have found that the camera is simple to operate (7th and 8th grade students here!) and the visual quality is excellent compared to other cameras we have used. It is simple to download the video to my PC and even easier to make a DVD from the downloaded files. All in all, I am very pleased so far with this purchase.Digital camera Review: Poor Video Quality
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this Camcorder from Amazon 2 months back and I am not happy with my purchase. Sony should make camcorders with Good video quality, they should understand camcorders are for shooting videos and not still picture. Sony added lot of good features with this camcorder but the video/picture quality is the worst. Daylight out door videos has come out with average quality. The indoor low light videos are very grainy. You can't do much with the software which comes with the camcorder. The one touch burn will work only for once for a specific video clip.
I had taken this to India during my vacation otherwise I would have returned it. I strongly advice every one not to buy this product. It is not worth paying around 800$ for this camcorder. I have used old mini DV camcorders 5 years back with better picture quality and with time sony should improve its technology to offer camcorders with better video quality especially the low light performance.
Digital camera Review: a great camera, and even more fun with iLife '08 on my Mac
Summary: 4 Stars
Ok.
So I went into purchasing this model with the wistful hope that Apple would eventually support hard drive camcorders in its iLife software. Just about every camcorder--especially the hard disk models--seems to come with "support" for Windows, albeit really bad software written by the camcorder vendors themselves or some third party who could care less about whether anyone uses it. So when I got this camcorder, to my dismay I was unable to use the camcorder properly on my Mac. The MPEG-2 files did, indeed, show up on my desktop (as an auto-mounted drive) but were otherwise unusable. Well, perhaps this is not completely true. I was able to view this camcorder's files by using the VLC Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)--a freely available (and apparently Open Source) program that doesn't suck. Unfortunately, this program is truly a view-only solution and not intended for editing/transformation of any kind. (I also tried ffmpeg and ffmpegX for OS X but, tragically, the audio gets lost in translation in all of my experiments. NOT VERY USEFUL!)
I actually went ahead and installed Sony's supplied software for Windows on one of my spare Windows systems, which I keep around precisely for situations like the present. To my amazement, there is no perceptible way in the Windows realm (using the supplied software) to save the files in another format. Shame on you, Sony. But what the hell? You really can't blame Sony. As far as I can tell, just about every camcorder vendor goes ahead and ships their mediocre software with the tacit understanding that Windows users will pay the toll--just like Apple's users do--to Microsoft (to whom these vendors are still enslaved) so they can read their files, and possibly convert them.
Back to the future (i.e. the Mac). iLife '08 just got released! This camera is one of the supported models out of the box, along with models from JVC and Panasonic. I actually bought a Panasonic (SDR-H200?) but ended up returning it because I couldn't connect it to any of my computers. The Panasonic support guy tells me it was a defective port, blah, blah. Anyway, I think the Sony is a better model--even without a true 3CCD sensor. (Dude, you're getting Zeiss lens. Superior optics DO matter.) I really like having the docking station and not having to disconnect the battery to transfer my photos. I also like the touch screen menus. Great to see I can get this capability outside of the iPhone universe. The DCR-SR300 is a true joy to use, and I'm just overjoyed that I can use this with my Mac.
In case anyone wonders why I gave four stars instead of five, I'm in the academic business and don't just give the grades away. The camera itself is probably worth 5 stars. Sony loses a star just for being themselves. Please, Sony, stop going out of your way to make your cameras unattractive to Mac and Linux users. While we're under 10% as a group, I think you can use every percent you can get.
Digital camera Review: Sony Style no longer.
Summary: 1 Stars
This is definitely a good product, the video quality is good but the low light has made shooting at nights a little less worthy. But that's not what I'm going to share today.
I've purchase this on 2nd April, 2007. Today its August 12th and this camera is already spoilt. Yes SPOILT. The screen is black, only able to see slight silloette, and the power shuts down abruptly.
This started yesterday and when I did not open the screen fully, the color was still alright.
I believe its the connection between the flap which is causing this problem, but this shouldn't happen. Especially when you've purchase this in USA and stationed abroad.
I'm not too pleased with the after support either. I'm very dissapointed with the outcome. Maybe mine was a bad apple in the batch. This product is clear of any falls or external influnced such as heat etc but Sony failed.
But it still breaks down. That my friend, is not worth the hassle. Sony's products has always been up to standard until now.