Sony Flash Memory Camcorders

Sony Flash Camcorders
Contributor: len
December 13, 2007

Then came the flash memory camcorders from JVC and others. Cool, but expensive
and because of my experience with Sony ‘Night Vision’ and ‘Carl Zeiss’ lenses I could
wait for Sony to come out with a comparable product.

I spotted the NSCGC1 a couple of months back and given the price, I had to give it a
try. This is a very easy camera to use and for the casual user the Mpeg 4 video and 5
mega pixel stills are more than enough. For stills the lens does fine for a comparable
camera and the view screen can be turned around making it fun for those party and
facebook shots. For video however the focus is a little jerky and the lens doesn’t quite
get the detail on quick action. Overall, for the price range this is only a minor set back
and it is still an excellent fun camera to use. A 2 MB memory stick pro is about all you
need with the camera to capture hours of fun.

Then there’s that amazing machine, the HDRCX7 than can do native high resolution
Mpeg 2, 1080p AVC HD, and on top of that does 6 mega pixel stills. While taking a
video it will take 3 stills concurrently. Put a 8 MB memory stick pro in this camera and
you have 2 hours of HD Video with 5.1 Sound of amazing quality. When I filmed HD
Video on my 42” HD TV, the quality of the recorded scenes was indistiquishable from
the original.

I prefer to record in the high resolution Mpeg 2 format myself for compatibility reasons,
but with the right software this is not necessary.

That is where we come to the camera’s only fault. It is designed with a cradle to build
hard copies, DVD or BD. To get real video editing software you have to purchase
some additional software. But given the quality of the camera and the fact the best
software to use with it is a Sony product and works across all present formats for both
the cameras here, I still gave this camera a 10.0 out of 10.0.

So if you get this sweet piece of art, go to Sony Creative Software (http://www.
sonycreativesoftware.com/products/product.asp?pid=447) and purchase a consumer
version of Vegas. It is simply the best, and I’ve been fighting with a number of
packages I won’t mention for years.

Sony HDRCX7 rating: 10.0/10.0
MSRP $1199.00

Sony NSCGC1 rating: 9.0/10.0
MSRP $199.00

I think it was 2000 when I ventured into digital video after abandoning it for a
couple of years following a month long fight with a Pinnacle video capture
card. In 2000, top end home desktops could barely handle Mpeg 2 and the
software was clunky and brutally slow. For the next 5 years I went through a
few generations of computers and All in Wonder ATI cards for video capture.
During that time I managed to digitize my VHS and 8 mm tapes before they
lost too much color or disintegrated.

Then came the Sony DCR-DVD100. I was excited. No more video capture,
digital files from the get go. True, but they were DVD Mpeg 2 files and
required software to extract them to your computer. Not only that but during
action shots, I lost a couple of movies due to corrupt DVD’s … I assume from
shaking the camera while recording.