I am not a video girl. It’s hard for me to drag out a video camera and record special goings-on in my life. I never understood people that would be at Disney World and video the entire It’s A Small World ride. Their entire experience was through a 1×1″ screen. I’d rather REALLY experience it!
But then…I pop in the video of my daughter’s first few minutes on earth. I hear that little bitty newborn baby cry and I am so thankful for my video camera!
About a month before my daughter was born my husband made me stand in Best Buy for 3 hours buying a video camera. I’ve never been in love with it and routinely use my little Sony CyberShot’s video capabilities over that clunky video camera we have.
But my videos frequently turn out sideways because I kinda forget you can’t rotate videos. And I hate that all my videos of my daughter (because that IS what 99% of them are) will be lame 14 second videos in bad quality with bad sound.
So, I was thrilled to be asked to review the new Sony Handycam HDR-SR10. And just what do all those letters mean? Well, it has nothing to do with the camera’s behavior disorders. This video camera films in HD. As in High Definition. As in the coolest and biggest thing in TV since rabbit ears! When the box arrived on my doorstep, my husband beat me to opening it. We plugged it right in (after I read the directions, of course!) and soon we were videoing away.
Now, here’s my favorite parts about this camera (completely WITHOUT any techno-babble):
1. 40 GIGS. As in 40 gigs of hard drive on your camera! You don’t have to stick a dumb tape in, find the ridiculously small DVDs or anything. You just PRESS RECORD and your videos are ON your camera! This is just so easy. With our other camera, I was always afraid I’d tape over some important scene or moment. Not with this camera.
2. THE SCREEN. I might be tempted to watch It’s A Small World through this screen. It’s enormous (2.7″) and for some unknown reason, it looks more real than real. I was following my daughter around while looking at the screen and it is so clear. The colors aren’t off, it captures it instantly without dragging or feeling pixelated.
3. FACE RECOGNITION. When you video someone’s face, the screen shows a little box around their face. I was videoing Lydia and her Snow White doll and Snow White even got her own face box! Why is this a good thing? Well, it automatically focuses on the face. So, you get the right color, brightness and exposure for up to eight faces. I also like it because as soon as that little box leaves, it means it’s time for me to keep moving with my subject! Whatever it’s point, it’s cool.
4. TOUCH SCREEN. Seriously. How easy is this thing to operate? You open it up and anything you need to do (fast-forward, rewind, switch to still, review, etc.) is just a little button on the screen. Touch it with your finger and go. None of those weird toggle knob-thingies. Not even any strange icons. Just words and normal pictures. And you just touch it. I’m sorry but having a touch screen anything in your house is just cool.
5. NOT SURE WHAT IT’S CALLED. But organization is what it does for me. When you want to review your pics (because of course, it takes still 4megapixel pictures with a smart flash) or videos, you just TOUCH your screen and you see all your little memories lined up in a row. No rewinding. No wondering if you’re recording over something. Everything is separated into it’s own little movie for you. This is my favorite feature, I think.
Now, the stuff I’m not too happy about…
1. IT DOES NOT WORK WITH MY MAC. Yeah. Like I can’t get videos off my camera onto my Mac. So, for this Mac-lover that STINKS. Of course, I can upload stills with it if I have a Memory Stick in it. (Which is actually a cool feature that you can use a memory stick in there.) Thank goodness my hubby has a lame-o Windows computer.
2. THE VIEWING SOFTWARE. I just don’t get it. It’s really very nicely organized. It uploads easily. But good gravy, it is not easy getting it online. I had to convert it, re-save it, upload it, cut and paste it, blah blah. And it doesn’t even look REMOTELY as good as it originally did when I put it on my computer straight from the camera. (Of course, some of this *could* be user error. I haven’t played with a pc in a few years.)
In conclusion…
There are so many other features I don’t understand, but when you read the list you can tell this thing is a Cadillac! It zooms, can switch from HD to standard, has night time video capabilities, built in zoom microphone, additional attachments, Carl Zeiss lens and oh, one of my favorite features, a cradle/base (instead of a random cord that looks like every other cord in your bucket o’cords).
Thanks, Sony! You might make a video girl out of me yet. Just get it working with my beloved Mac and we’ll be lifelong friends!
For more information, please check this out. It’s every detail you can imagine. And actually, it’s quite interesting.