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Buy Cheap Sony HDR-SR5 AVCHD 4MP 40GB High Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

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Experience the world of high definition with the compact and capable HDR-SR5 high definition Handycam camcorder. Switch between video modes to capture video in HD or SD (standard definition) on the built-in hard drive. Professional-quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T lens and 10x optical/80x digital zoom keeps everything close and clear. You can even use the Dual Record Mode to capture still images at the same time as shooting video.
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Technical Details

- Record high-definition (AVCHD) video directly to a 40GB HDD
- 1/3-inch ClearVid CMOS sensor for high-quality HD or SD images
- 2.7-inch widescreen hybrid touch-panel Clear Photo LCD Plus display
- Professional-quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* lens
- Easy one-touch disc burn; Handycam Station included
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 "After A Year and a Half" 2009-12-05
By Sephethus (Philadelphia, PA)
This has to be the most useless camera I have ever spent a ridiculous amount of money for. The primary reason for buying a digital camcorder is so that I can edit them in any given piece of software, convert them to a common format and upload them to the internet or view them in any player. Not possible. Trying to get Sony's proprietary AVCHD m2ts format converted to anything useful is an extraordinary amount of time wasted.



Problem 1: You can't just plug in an ordinary USB cable to upload videos to the computer, no, you have to have the platform it sits on and a unique kind of USB connector plugged into the platform.

Problem 2: Proprietary video format, you can either A: burn a DVD or B: convert it to something that no codec can open. See 3.

Problem 3: You can't upload it to Facebook without buying a $50 piece of converter software that will put it into a common format. Oh, when you convert it, forget the HD, it goes bye bye.

Problem 4: The software that comes with it is only for PC's, Sony hates Apple. So I have to launch a VMware Windows XP session if I even want to use their useless as tits on a bull software that thinks it is user friendly but really only complicates things.

Problem 5: The "video stabilizer"? A joke, get a good tripod if you expect to have any video that doesn't vibrate more than a jackhammer during an earthquake.



Why can't it just record in a common format or at least have a built in converter that allows you to choose the format you want on the camera hardware itself.



From what I have learned, if you really want a video editor that is compatible with this camera, look forward to spending an extra $200.



I don't know what camcorder you should buy, or what I will try to get next, but don't buy Sony, they wouldn't know a computer if it bit them on the @ss.

 "Great Starter Camera" 2009-08-23
By Nathan Knarreborg (Los Angeles, CA USA)
This camera is simple to use and has great recording quality for the price. I recommend the an additional extended battery and the polarized lens for outdoor use. This camera can be used as for simple recording or you can explore the many menu options to add effects or fine adjustments. The digital zoom is amazing up to 20X before it starts loosing most of it's quality. The still camera option is great and takes photos as good as most consumer point and shoot cameras. I've had this camera for more than a year and haven't had any problems.



Make sure your video editing software can handle AVCHD format and that your computer has a big hard drive (500GB+). When these HD videos are in their uncompressed format they can be very large. The following videos have all been shot with the HDR-SR5 and edited in iMovie (mac). [...]

 "Great Camera, Poor Software" 2008-12-04
By Andrew Wessman (Walton, KY)
I've had this camera for over a year now, and have been very happy with it overall. Great picture, very easy to use, can take decent stills while also shooting video. I play the videos back on a 52" 1080p LCD tv and they look great.



The only drawback is the includedd software, Picture Motion Browser. It completely crashed my Vista Ultimate 64-bit computer and was totally unusable. While they claim to have corrected it, I can't seem to find a fix I can install fresh on the website. I think newer camera models have the newer software, but even the little bit I was able to use it (after install but before I rebooted the first time and it crashed), I wasn't impressed with usability anyways.



But, I went and bought a copy of Sony Vegas Studio Platinum for about a hundred bucks, and it is a great AVCHD video editor. If you simply assume when you buy this camera, you'll need to pay that as well, the pair make a great setup for editing and buring the videos to disks or saving them as video files of almost any format imaginable. And Vegas will interface with the camera to grab the files.



While having Vegas solves the software problem for editing and burning, it's a bit cumbersome for just viewing. I downloaded a free codec package (K-Lite Code Pack) which enabled window's media player to play the AVHCD .m2ts files, which took care of that.



One thing to note, the video on this is 1440 x 1080/ 60i, and some newer models are 1920 x 1080/ 60i. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this camera now that I've gotten the software side figured out, and I think the newer HDR-SR? ones are probably even better.



Another side note. AVCHD support may seem a little spotty now, but with a little research you can get things done well enough, and Windows 7 will support it natively (saw this on a MS website). So, the world will catch up.

 "Good Quality, Invest in Software" 2008-10-22
By Dean A. Neubauer (Minneapolis, MN)
This is a good camera but lacking hardware controls for zoom, focus, and iris. The AVCHD format is good but support for it is still catching up. Invest in Nero or Vegas Pro to edit.

 "Don't record in HD" 2008-05-22
By K. Brainerd
My husband and I purchased this camcorder back in October, and found it to be a great little camcorder. We recently went on vacation, and got the idea to try recording in HD for the first time. We were able to play back the video ONCE by plugging into an HD TV. After that, we have been unable to retrieve ANY of our HD videos!! We can not even use the playback feature on the camcorder ... hours of video, now useless.



I really wish that we had done some more research before purchasing this. After many frustrating hours doing research, and downloading software, we have come to learn that the software for HD pretty much doesn't exist ... thus making the HD feature an expensive, yet useless "perk". Stay away from ANY Sony HD camera until more software becomes available.


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Buy Sony HDR-SR5 AVCHD 4MP 40GB High Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom Now