HDR-UX5 HDV Handycam Camcorder

...

for still photo. I do not have problem shooting photo indoor.

The camcorder ($700) is expensive. On top of that, you need money for the accessories.

1. You have two choices of video format- HD OR SD. With HD, you should get the sony blu-ray disc player because the High def is AVCHD 1080i and can be playback on your tv with sony blu-ray disc player. Without a sony blu-ray disc player, you can playback the high def video by connecting the video camera to your tv set with the supplied component video cable. You will not be able to play "the disc" by itself using a regular dvd player if it is recorded with HD video. With SD, it is MPEG2 video. So, for SD, you can play your 8cm disc without the blu-ray disc player. For high def, you should get a Sony blu-ray disc player. I think of the Sony blu-ray disc player as an important accessory to the UX5.

2. Using the supplied battery(FH60), the recording time for SD (on SP mode) is about 75 min. I upgraded the battery to FH70 and I expect to get about 150 min. So I do not need to run back to my hotel to charge the battery when I was only halfway through shooting at the Great Wall. The mini dvd+rw disc records 30 min (single-sided, 1.4GB). If you want to record continuously on a single disc, consider using dvd+r DL. In SD (on SP mode), it is about 55 min.

3. If you record with dvd-rw disc, you can split or trim the video and that is all the editing function you got from sony. Or, you can use Nero 8 Ultra Edition to edit High Definition content in AVCHD format. Roxio easy media creator 10 and Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus will edit AVDHD. I don't know whether EMC 10 down-converted your footage. Certainly, it is much less expensive than doing it on the mac with Final Cut Studio 2. On the mac, you need Intel Core 2 Duo, Quartz Extreme graphics card, Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later, at least 2GB of RAM, Final Cut Pro 6 which is included in FCS 2. If instead, you use imovie '08, which is included with iLife '08; it will downgrade the high def to 480i. To me, it means it is not high def anymore.

So, as I've said before, AVCHD means get a Sony blu-ray disc player, shoot in high def and show your footage on the big screen like it is meant to be.

[...].

HDR-UX5 HDV Handycam Camcorder

...

changing the DVD.
* Editing AVCHD files require a lot of processing power. Now I need to upgrade both my PC and my video editing software.
* Not possible to record both high def and standard def in the same DVD
* All disks have to be finalized before being able to read on a PC, and this is a slow operation that can take up to 5 minutes. So better to transfer videos through USB if you haven't had to remove the DVD from the camera because you ran out of disk space.
* Battery duration. Battery supplied is NP-FH60 rather than NP-FH70 and sometimes won't last for 2 DVDs of 15 minutes each.
* Only as emergency photo camera since quality of photos is way below my old Canon Ixus 2 Mpixel camera.
* Photos taken during video recording are even worse
* Memstick is not provided, so unless you buy one, you cannot even try it as a photo camera.
* I bought a Mem stick of 1GB. This is the same capacity than the DVDs, but you cannot recrd video to the memory stick!
* Camera is slow to start recording since you press the record button, so you may loose the first two seconds. In addition it is slow powering up.
* No multi TV System. I bough in the US and therefore is NTSC only, but I want to use it in Asia Pacific and in Europe. Fortunately I have a multisystem TV.

HDR-UX5 HDV Handycam Camcorder

...

to play the Double Layer DVD but can use the camcorder as player. Anyways you can use standards mini DVDs.

Is a good deal, i think camcordes twice the price are not much better than this.