Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
  Great quality camcorder August 29, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was shopping around at other places, but after reading reviews about the businesses offering this camcorder, most of the cheaper places seemed to be scams or places that earn their money pressuring you to buy accessories, etc.
The picture quality is phenomenal, even indoors and in low light. There is some graininess at the edges, but subjects always look great. The built-in mic records in 5.1 surround, and while I haven't really tried to listen to each channel it does pick up a surprising amount.
All ports are protected by hard plastic covers that slide or flip open, as opposed to rubber stoppers, which at least gives a sense of a better build quality than most. Some ado has been made of the control dial, which is the metal knob located just below the lens, it's visible in the product picture; it's OK, but can only be assigned one function at a time, either focus, white balance, or exposure, and if you want to change the function, you have to go through several presses of the touchscreen.
The touchscreen itself is fairly responsive and accurate, and logically laid out. There's also a dedicated, hardware "easy" button if you don't want to fuss with it and just point/shoot.
AVCHD as a format seems to be getting more universally accepted as a video format to edit; I have an aging Pentium 4 3GHz and playback can be a slight issue, it's not terribly smooth or watchable. I'd recommend getting a mini HDMI cable, the camcorder only comes with a SD plug with RCA outs and the picture quality is terrible in comparison. Included software is the barest barebones, you can transfer video and pictures to your computer, watch/view them, and burn raw footage to DVD in standard definition.
I believe that the measure of a camcorder is the quality of its video, though, and this one shoots 5 star video; most gripes that I have really have to do with the cost of upgrading to HD, like getitng a HDMI cable, HD editing software, parts for my computer so it can edit/playback smoothly, etc., which really aren't the camera's fault. Aside from being able to more efficiently utilize the control dial, I can't think of anything I'd want to improve on this camcorder.
 Sony HDR-S11 August 28, 2008
The camera is capable of generating great images. The onboard mic is typical for this type, limited to about 8 feet. In order to use an auxillary mic, you need and adapter for the Sony Intelligent hotshoe, a good adapter is about $30. Battery life is shorter than I expected from a camera that uses a hard drive for storage rather than a power-hungry tape transport system, but it will run for almost an hour. Lack of an iLink (firewire) port is an odd choice for Sony, considering you're moving data from an external drive (the camera) to a computer for editing, transfer speed should have been a bigger consideration. All in all, a nice unit, especially since AVCHD is now supported in the major editing applications.
happy customer August 24, 2008
This is a great camcorder. Takes awesome digital photos too.
Yes, it's really Full HD. Expensive, but worth every penny.
Phenomenal! July 28, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This camcorder is great. It replaces a SD JVC camcorder that died; fortunately just prior to my first child being born. So I did my due diligence and finally chose the SR11 from Sony. The SR12 is identically spec'd but with a larger hard drive, thus more capacity. I went with the SR11 as even on the highest HD setting, I would have to change the battery several times before the hard drive would fill up. For me I have found that decision to hold up well and I come nowhere close to filling up the 60GB hard drive between recordings. I saved a few pennies vs the SR12 and applied that to getting an extended capacity battery. Much better money spent IMO. The batteries on these cams are getting better but you still need an extended pack to record a long session. What good is the extra capacity if you don't have the battery life? The HD is not a limiting factor for how much you can record, its the battery life. SO for a similar amount of money as an SR12 I have an SR11 that can actually record more with my extra battery before I have to go and find a power outlet. Besides if I ever (don't know how) fill up the hard drive, I can slap in stick media and record to it!
As far as quality goes, it is stunning. I have a 50" Pioneer plasma HD deisplay and this camera really makes it shine. It is amazing that for this amount of money my home movies look 10x better than my local networks SD newscast. As a matter of fact, it's really not that far behind the HD video being broadast; especialy when considering the money involved! This camera is the difference between watching home movies that look like 10 year old tapes on America's Funniest Home Videos and watching your newborn baby on blu-ray. Money well spent IMO.
It has strong additional features as well. The facial recognition feature is very effective. The 5 channel (not 5.1) microphone works surprisingly well too. The soundstage surprised me on the first clips I replayed on my home theater. Sound panned as I panned the camera; all this on a consumer grade cam is amazing. The hybrid recording is a plus in my opinion too. Pepole get scared at the thought of walking around with a hard drive getting bumped around. This has not been an issue with these cameras so far but lets consider the possibility. The key advantage of Sony's hybrid system is in case a failure does occur. The Canon's I looked at were either flash memory or hard drive only. If either fails you are done. With Sony's system say the hard drive does die, just slap in some stick memory and keep on rolling video. The flash memory only camcorders appear to be much cheaper but add in the cost of getting the stick media and see that advantage almost disappear. Toss in the fact that the biggest stick media is around 50% of the capacity of this camera's hard drive and 25% of the big brother SR12 and you're gonna be switching memory cards or uploading to the laptop much more frequently. Plus there's the possibility you could misplace them juggling them around while on vacation.
Again in summary, money well spent and hard to believe this level of quality is finally within reach of us end-users.
excellent camera my very first one July 28, 2008
sorry amazon i bought my camera form circuitcity for 100 doaalrs cheaper and got a free batter, and camera bag for 100 dollars more so i saved money one thing that really got attention fro this camera was the eyepiecce to look into if the sun is to bright and you cant use lcd screen touch screen whcich could be had to see sometimes because of the glare of lights you use the eye piece to capture your video or images hands down winner i highly recomend it.
this is great camera video is great, picture quality is great easy to use and navigate it has an option to switch night vision on and off best part is you could buy accersories for teh camera brighter flash widescreen lens, extra zoom lens water proof casing thats good for 17 feet
my only complaint is that you need the computer program that comes with the camera to transfer your pictures, and video to your pc thats the only thing i dont like about the camera
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