What are the differences

[Barney McGrew]

Looking at these 2 camcorders, can someone tell me the real differences in terms of picture quality.

sony1

sony2

[samhs]

not that you'd really notice. I think one of them records at 1440 pixels across, and upscales to 1980, and the other records natively at 1980 - I could be wrong. But apparently these both suffer from noise issues (dot patterns on the footage). For that reason, I've just ordered a panasonic HDC-SD5 instead of one of these (which I considered as an alternative) - gets very good reviews when compared with these two, and is actually as cheap or cheaper if you shop around.

hth

Sam

[Barney McGrew]

I do like that. The storage media confuses me though, it looks like it uses cards of some description.

When is it due to arrive sam, I might just hang on to see what you think ?

[samhs]

it does use cards - although there is a disc based version. This uses SD cards (now available up to 8gb for approx £40 a pop). It actually arrived today, but I've not had time to look at it yet other than check it works Will report back....

Sam

[Barney McGrew]

Will look forward to it Sam. My main concern was the ease of use in getting the footage off the camera. Sony just drops them into your PC and you can then view them in Media Player etc. I believe the panasonic model works in a different way and they have to be converted. I am also not sure how many mins the 4 GB supplied card would hold as I cant seem to find that much info on the camera with it being a new model ?

[samhs]

8gb = 1hr20 at best quality (1920 x 1080)
8gb = 2hr medium quality (1440 x 1080 - expanded up to 1920 x 1080 == "high quality" on the 1st gen versions of these camcorders)
8gb = 3hr extended quality (1440 x 1080 - expanded up as above, but with higher compression I think)

NOTE: UK model doesn't come with a card bundled - that'll be a retailer offer.

4gb therefore gives you 40 mins, 1hr or 1 1/2 hrs depending upon the mode you record in. There's a piece of software that converts to MPEG2 for you, but I believe Premiere, Pinnacle etc are all set up to handle AVCHD....

Still not had time to properly play with it, but first impressions based on a quick tour of the functions - it seems very nice indeed.

hth

Sam