I really like this camera. It is compact, shoots nice stills and has good sound qualities. The interface is intuitive and I was tweking settings right out of the box with little or no reference to the manual. It is perfect for quick family videos and fits in a small camera bag, making it easy to transport. The problem is when you shoot long videos and want to edit them down. I have found that for my purposes the .MOD format this camera produces is old and has to be converted to .avi or .wmv for the sort of editing I want to do. That means a very long conversion process through the supplied software, which I did not find particularly usable or helpful. The autofocus also has issues indoors in medium lighting and the image stabilization is not the best out there. If you want a happy cam to grab shots of the family and friends, then this is a really good buy. Otherwise, spend the extra and go for a unit that has more flexibility with its video outputs. I started out loving this camera , but every day I find something else I dislike about it.