Sony HD Camcorders - Tech Review

Sony HD Camcorders - Tech Review Mike Agerbo: You have to love high definition just for the sheer quality but sometimes you can get in almost a little too close. I mean you’re good-looking guy but when you get into the pores there, it could be a little scary. Got Brent De Waal from Sony once again, we’re having a look at the latest in high def camcorders and I can't believe how small this is. Brent De Waal: I know they get smaller every iteration, this is the CX100, our new flash based, so it has eight gig built in memory and you can add memory sticks in there to increase your recoding time. Its just a fabulously compact, its light and just the picture qualities are outstanding. Mike Agerbo: Well let’s talk about that, this is using basically digital card memory, the memory sticks. Are people starting to get away from like the DVD’s and tape and stuff? Brent De Waal: Well it’s so nice because it’s all-digital and if you want to make a copy for a DVD or a copy for a friend or just put on your computer. You just copy the files it’s so easy. There's a button right on there for burn to DVD, we have accessories, you plug right in, you put in the DVD, press record and then it’s ready to play on your Blue Ray player or your PS3. Mike Agerbo: Well this is a full touch screen, maybe you can show us how it works. Brent De Waal: Sure, so the great thing about touch screen is you’re able to control the camera while you’re watching it. you can hold it nicely in two hands, start and stop and use all the zoom which is great when you’re chasing kids around or doing all those kinds of things. You can hold it in one hand but the touch screen allows you to access any of the options and if you want to do play back, it’s just like going through the menu on a DVD. You find the icon you want and you play that back. Mike Agerbo: Well let’s hook this up to the TV because I know you have some. Brent De Waal: Okay. Mike Agerbo: Stuff on here and high definition, this is full HD but its compressed? Brent De Waal: That’s right, all HD is compressed at some level, so we have Blue Ray, which has the least amount of compression, home video which has a little more, but it’s all the full 1920X1080. If we have a look here at the some of the footage, we’ve shot, I’ll just go into the play menu, and you can see on the screen what I see here. I’m just touching the buttons, with Bravia Sync, you can run this all with your own TV remote if you have a Sony Bravia, so here’s my son-playing hockey when I touch the screen here it does doesn’t it? So you just pick the icon you want to watch and when you press that, you jump right into the detail. Mike Agerbo: Qualities really good. Brent De Waal: It’s really amazing and so all your kids are going to have high def TV, so you might as well shoot them on high def now. It’s just so much nicer to watch. A lot of people collect videos but you know with the ease of use you’re actually watching the video, so when you come right home from hockey practice, you put it on, you’re watching it. Mike Agerbo: Well let’s just go through some of the specs one last time here. Have eight gigs of onboard memory and how many hours of video is that? Brent De Waal: That’s about two hours at a really good quality, you can change the quality up or down to get, more last time but you’re looking about two hours on that. Mike Agerbo: And it’s got a—I believe a lithium ion battery and how long is that going to last you? Brent De Waal: You’re going to get about 90 minutes on most of our camcorders with the supplied battery. You can buy an extended battery that will double or triple that time and they’re all really light as well. Mike Agerbo: And this one also has the built in digital still camera as well? Brent De Waal: That’s right, four mega pixels still and you can shoot a smaller two-mega pixel picture while you’re shooting the video, so if I want to get a picture at the same time as I’m shooting video. I can take up to three on a single shot when I start and stop, so you’ve got a lot of options and they’re really in a compact package. Mike Agerbo: And what kind of price point are we looking— Brent De Waal: You’re looking about $699.00 for this in three colors; we’re looking at red, blue and silver. Mike Agerbo: Is the red faster? Brent De Waal: The red’s so much faster. Mike Agerbo: Brent De Waal here from Sony looking at the latest in Sony high def camcorder.