» Sony HDR-SR11 10.2-MP 60GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

Sony HDR-SR11 10.2-MP 60GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Camcorder for Veteran Users
Comment: The SR11 is a great camcorder for the money. Canon's product at this level does not cover all of the bases. Sony's SR11 does but with one huge, BUT!! You can burn a DVD in a flash with the self-loading software provided. BUT, you cannot play the DVD on a regular DVD player. Excuse me? How many people have HD DVD players. Plus, playing the stuff on your computer, prior to being burned to a DVD, requires using the "manipulate" function each time. Otherwise, the sound and the picture are not in sync. Further, no where in the provided documentation does it tell you how to use the Remote. You have to go online to the Sony Handycam Handbook to find out how. By choice, I paid a consultant $75 to get through all of this. Now, that I have graduated from camcorder school, I can enjoy all of the following SR11 bells and whistles: It downloads to your computer in a flash. The picture quality is superb and the touchscreen does everything but make breakfast. You have to be brain dead not to get a great shot out of this camcorder. The Zoom function is awesome with an unbelievable range. The sound quality is "hearing the crickets scratch" good. With the microphone output jack, and wireless capablity, the world is your oyster. So, go out and buy this camcorder if you have an HD player, and you have had a camcorder before. You will love it. If not, the words "what have I done," and "Ibuprofen" will come to mind. P.S. I don't like Jeff Bezos, but no one consistently has this camcorder cheaper than Amazon.com.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Now that's what I call a high def cam.....
Comment: Amazing picture quality....just like watching ESPN-HD. The controls on this camera are well placed and easy to understand. The menu choices are plenty and easy to use. I've always been a fan of the Sony touch screen and I am not dissappointed. Love this camera....especially since I got a great deal on amazon.com as always...check this out $795 with free shipping

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Customer Rating:
Summary: So far so good
Comment: I bought the SR-11 here from Amazon. Got it in time to head straight to my son's basketball game literally right out of the box (I had bought an extra battery that was fully charged).

Programed the date/time, no prob. Then just started shooting the game (My son scored 31 pts..and we won!) I recorded in the HD just so I could see what it was like (plus it was by default set on that). Got home found the cables and plugged into the HD TV and it looked fantastic. Played back fine.

Then for the next test- iMovie and Final Cut Express... It mounted for iMovie and I was able to bring in the footage. I made a 25 minute highlights show. Went fine. At one point, had a little glitch when in the editing area the filmstrips weren't visiable, but you could tell they were still there because the pointer would show the dates/time of the shots. I know this may not be clear, but I think it happened due to me taking 80% of the footage and dragging it into the project window at one time. iMovie suggested I not, but I did. It was OK.

iMovie changes the file type so that it is not HD. I don't know much about the technical side of all that.

So I thought I would try to see the HD footage by importing and saving it with Final Cut Express (I don't own Pro.) I am not familiar with Final Cut Express only bought it so I could do slow mo because iMovie can't, but haven't used it once. I read a bunch around the forums, etc. and learned FCE will recognize the camera as "unknown" and it clips with the "Log and Transfer" (which I had no clue what it was). I really just wanted to get the HD footage on one of my backup drives to save (it was my son's career high pts).

FCE did see it with the Loop and Transfer. I really didn't know what I was doing, but started "saving" the clips in its original format, except I understand, it is "converted" to Apple Intermediate Codex...so something like that..read around you'll see info on this. The point is supposedly the file sizes increase. Bottomline line....it worked, BUT the file sizes are huge! I mean something like a 17 second clip is like 200 MG file.

I am thinking about getting Sony's DVDirect/Recorded/Blu-ray Disc Player and not using the computer to "save' the files at all. Also, I understand, if I shoot in "standard" mode and have HD files on the camera's harddrive , there are some problems...don't know the details...had something to do with either retrieving the files or the quality.

I am going to shoot footage in "standard" mode. The file sizes are smaller and I can use it easliy with iMovie.

Anyway, sorry for the typos and poor sentences....but that is where I am after 36 hours of owning this camera. Oh yeah, the software won't load on a Mac, fyi.

One a 1-5. I'd say a 4. The quality is excellent (of the footage). It is just I am not a "video" guru...the different file types, etc. and it is a little bit of a hassle not being able to work in it and save it as a native file (which isn't practical anyway due to the huge files, unless you are a professional, but for the average Joe- we have to figure out how to save the HD files, which is why I am looking at the Sony DV Direct. Burn them in HD to DVD and them take the footage to the Mac and then save it as a standard non-HD file type to play with in iMovie.

Hope this helps. I like the camera. The little face boxes are pretty cool when you are shooting footage at a basketball game. So, far I am pleased.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: hf10 vs sr11
Comment: Bought both cameras to compare. Everybody seems to think that these two are the top consumer cameras to look at. I'll probably agree. Between the two cameras, I ended up choosing the hf10. Simply put, I was expecting the sr11 to perform better at 60i in low light(30-60 lux) based on online reviews. It was definity brighter with auto. However, If you turn up the exposure on the hf10 (in 60i) you could match the brightness of the sr11. Turning up the exposure on the hf10 also made the color saturation increase in low light to where the hf10 was slightly better than the sr11.

Another expectation based on reviews was for the sr11 to have less noise in the same low light range. This is partly true. What they don't tell you is the type of noise. Sure there is less noise, but it is large
chroma noise. It is easily seen on any tv or monitor from normal viewing distance. Medium to dark objects in a 17 x 17 2 story room lit with 4 100w bulbs off a ceiling fan all had very noticable color blotches. The hf10 in the same room produced more noise but it was much finer and it was more of the lumanence type. The noise was definitely more pleasant on the hf10 and you would not really notice it at normal viewing distance on a tv.

The last expectation I had was for the sr11 to produce better skin tones than the hf10. I have a sony vx2000 which I think produces very pleasant skin tones in the low light. Manual white balanceing both the sr11 and hf10 shows that the skin tones look about the same with neither looking better than the other at all in low light (same room conditions as discribed above.) The "peachy" skin tones of the vx2000 was more pleasant than either of these cameras but it is not an HD camera.

Outside, hf10 had a sharper image that is slightly more colorful on most colors except green. The sr11 does make greens look more saturated. The hf10 simply looks more clear however. Its raw performance is better in bright conditons.

Now the down side. My biggest gripe on the hf10 is the auto mode. It tends to underexpose-especially in low light but also applies outside in the shade. You constantly have to increase the exposure to make it look right in low light-many times adding 3 steps of additional exposure. On the lcd screen, some times it has to look a little over exposed to get the recorded video too look right. Fortunely, the recorded video has more detail in the over blown highlights than the built in lcd screen shows. The sr11 has the advantage where you can shift the auto mode to your liking. As an example, you can add 1 exposure level and it will keep that for all its auto exposure calculations. You can not do that with the hf10. You have to manually control it all. The controls are about the same for me except that the sr11 can use a LANC tripod. Handheld, the cam dial of the sr11 is smooth but it firm enough to where the camera will move when you use it. The joystick of the hf10 really isn't any better.

All in all, the hf10 has a greater potential to create better quality video in all lighting (including shooting at 60i) but requires more effort. You do have to turn up the exposure manually and manually white balance to achieve all this however. I actually wanted to like the sr11 because of LANC capability but once I manually set the exposure and white balance of both cameras in low light, my choice was easy. I could not accept the larger blotches of color noise and imagine it would not be very pleasant to record an evening wedding in a church. If you just want to point and shoot, then the sr11 is for you. If you are willing to adjust the camera, I think it is clear that the hf 10 is better. I don't want it to sound like a one sided review but I invite everyone to compare the cameras yourselves as I have done. There are too many times when the reviews are misleading. The sr11 is clearly better than consumer cameras
from the past, but if you don't mind setting a couple of parameters manually, the hf10 is clearly better when it comes to video quality. And to me, thats what matters.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Simply the Best!
Comment: This is the best camcorder I have ever owned (camcorders I have owned: one Hi8 mm Sony, one Hi8mm Canon, Two miniDV JVCs, one hard drive HD Sony--SR5). I believe the best way to evaluate a product is by comparison --- of course one cannot compare "apple to orange". Before I bought the SR11 two weeks ago, I bought a Canon HG10. The canon is also a hard drive HD. I was very disappointed by the Canon. The Canon HG10 video quality (resolution and color) was just slightly better than my JVCs (miniDV digital standard definition) and much worse than my almost two-year-old Sony SR5 (also hard drive HD, the SR5 also produces excellent HD videos). Although the Canon has many more other features (e.g. a wide range of shuttle speed, 24p, etc), I returned the Canon because to me, video resolution, color saturation and low light performance (to be fair, Canon HG10's low light performance was excellent) are the most important elements of a camcorder. I did not think the manual shuttle speeds are important for a video camera although I do believe they are important for a still camera. In terms of 24p, although many reviewers stated they like it, I don't think it makes much difference after trying it on the Canon HG10.

I bought the SR11 after returning the Canon HG10 and I am totally satisfied with the SR11. The SR11's video quality is amazingly good---extremely high resolution and vivid color. It has everything you need for excellent quality HD family videos in every event of daily living including low light situation.

I did not expect a camcorder can produce good still pictures but the SR11 surprised me. The still pictures taken by this camcorder are also very good although they cannot compare to my Nikion D80 DSLR. I would not use the SR11 as the primary device for still picture but I will definitely have no problem with using it for still pictures when my Nikon is not around.

The SR11 has exceeded my expectation. I highly recommend this camcorder to anyone.

The software came with SR11 can do only limited editing but this is in line with the industry standard (i.e. feature of software came with other brands). I use Pinnacle 12 Plus for editing. However, the AVCHD disc burn by Pinnacle was not recognized by the AVCHD player software came with the SR11. This same disc can be recognized/played by the other AVCHD player I installed in my computer. I am contacting Pinnacle trying to figure out what the problem is. If you buy the SR11 and don't have an editing software and want to invest in one, perhaps Sony Vegas is the way to go.

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