Healthy Living Books Electronics

Rating: - Randomly loses your footage
Having used a Sony DVD camcorder for just over 12 months I was beginning to get tired of some of its "issues", such as sqaushing 16:9 footage into 4:3 and Sony's own proprietary ways of coding the information on the DVD which makes it difficult to read by other software I have. But I was learning to live with them...

However the worse thing happened on Christmas Day. Having taken video of the kids opening their presents I switched the camera off. On swicthing it back on later the same day to review the footage I got a "recording diabled" message and all the camera wanted to do was format the disc. I put the disc into a PC and tried everything I could think of to locate the footage, but to no avail. It was totally lost - the entire disc's worth of recording. I searched the internet for a solution, but there seem to be many people with a similar problem of randomly lost footage, but as yet no solution.

Please - buy something else!

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Rating: - A bit disappointed
I have been making movies for about 4 years with the video mode on my ordinary cameras, I wanted to be able to zoom in further on wildlife, as above I am a bit disappointed with the shakiness of the footage, you definitely need a tripod to zoom in to digital x2000, there is no stablization as there is with my Fujifinepix camera. I would recommend you do like I did and download the manual from the Sony website and read some of it first, order a Memory Stick from amazon at the same time, you will need the PRO Duo with "Mark2" or without.SONY MEMORY STICK PRO Duo with Adapter 4Gb. You can record both movies and stills to the card no problem then use movie making software to edit and compile. I use Serif Movie Plus5.Magix Movie Edit Pro 11 2007 (PC)(this is similar).There are plenty of free ones available in a search.

To get back to my review, I think this Handycam is well worth the money, sleek, stylish and small enough to carry around wherever you go.

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Rating: - Cannot register and loses your recordings
Now this looks a very smart camcorder as was pleased when opened the box. Very confusing though when you try to get it started. Cannot register it either. When trying to register it with the disc it will only register it if you live in the states (although purchased on Amazon UK). So i tried online and that will still not register either. Filming was good though which we bought specifically for our new addition to the family. Recorded a whole dvd's worth. Could not get the disc out to use it for a friends wedding though. When finally it decided to eject i took it out and then put it back in the camcorder (for some reason i really don't know why i did) and it formatted it without me even touching it. Not good with a little one around. I lost 5 months recording that i had done. Thats because i bought the DVD+RW that Amazon recommended. It automatically wants to format a disc when you put it back in. Crazy. If i had known i would never have purchased these discs. I have given the camcorder 1 star for its recording capability and that only. The manual is hard to understand and everything else for that matter. The touch screen looks good but is difficult to figure out. The rest is rubbish and i can never recover the recordings of our little baby boy. Annoyed.

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Rating: - No remote control
Page 19 of the Operating Guide (Step 1: Checking supplied items) states that the Wireless Remote Commander is supplied only with Models DCR-DVD310E/ DVD410E/DVD710E and DVD810E.

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Rating: - Great price
I love this. Haven't quite figured out how to use all the features yet, but I can use it and I like it very much. For the price it is now (I paid £178) it is a steal, although you have to add the cost of DVDs, carry-case and memory stick if you are using one. The discs (once finalised) slip straight into the PC and DVD and play in my case (although strangely one of them will not play on the DVD for some reason). Niggles: the accompanying CD turns out to be just tips for good filming. Nothing about software/editing the footage so where is that?! Took the Handycam on holiday recently and was very careful to put it in standby or turn off when not using; however, on return was surprised to see an inordinate amount of filming of the floor, feet, and the inside of the carry case. Before you blame me, as I was being very careful, I can only assume it slips into recording mode rather too easily for my liking. However, a great buy for the price.