I love the camera and everything that it does. The HD looks incredible on my TV. Here is what you need to be careful about. Know how you plan to edit the material. If you have a PC software is included. If you own a make know that FCP 6.0.1 works, but only if you have an intel chip Mac Book Pro. It does not work with a PowerPC or imovie. The camera does film in SD mode however and that works fine.

Very simple to use. The picture quality is really good. More recording time than I will need, about 12 hours but the battery that comes with it lasts 2 hours so buy an extra battery. Does not have the view finder like the SR 7 but makes it easier to walk around while filming with the small flip screen. Comes with everything you will need except HDMI cable you will have to order from Sony $49.00.Software compatible with Vista. Night lite and recording very good, clear for about 15-20 feet pitch black. Excellent detail for commercial work. Only drawbacks were the small buttons and no port cover on the bottom for possible moisture exposure.

Ok let start buy saying that a colleage education does not mean crap! Now on to why I say this.
As you are recording, the hard drive makes like a pop sound, and with the mic on top and right next to the hard drive, guess what? IT PICS IT UP!
I read a lot on a product before I buy and no one has said ANYTHING about this. I went through 3 camcorders and they ALL did the same thing. Those engineers who designed this thing was not thinking at all and it's a shames because the picture quality is BEAUTIFUL! Even on a NON hd monitor and that is what makes me mad because it's a good camcorder, BUT the pop sounds are VERY annoying.

I moved from Hi8 directly to this so have not seen the difference in quality between Hi8 and MiniDV but if compared to this one, I was totally blown away with the clarity and colors. This is an awesome camera for anyone looking for budget HD camera in market for average user. Though kit battery life is not that great so probably I will buy another one soon but otherwise I have no issue till date. Go for it guys!!

I got this small peice a month back. Its great Camera. Picture quality is very good. Size is very small comparable with other Cameras. Storage is very good.
But Only the problem is battery is small. It last only 60 to 70 min. So I purchaged spare battery.
Finally I can say its great.

Very nice product, small in size huze in quality.

Photo Quality is very nice
SD Video Quality is excellent
HD Video Quality is great

Simply superb.

I recently purchased the camera for school projects and have Avid Liquid Pro as an editing software. When I tried to download the video to edit, it ruined all my other video files throughout my computer. When I chatted with Sony's online help they basically said, "Sorry but we don't guarantee it won't do that." Read the entire transcript below for the full conversation.

Problem : When I installed the software it messed up every mpeg2 file I had on my computer. I cannot open my video from the camcorder on from my computer in any media player or video editing software.
Jayson_ > Hi David. Welcome to Sony Online Support. I'm Jayson. Please allow me a moment to review your concern.
Jayson_ > Thanks for waiting, David. I'll be glad to assist you with the information about viewing the videos file on the Computer.
Jayson_ > What is the operating system that is installed in your computer?
David Lawrence > Windows xp
Jayson_ > Is the Camcorder recognized by the Computer when connected with the USB Cable?
David Lawrence > The weird thing is that it not only messed up the video from my camcorder it messed up every mpeg2 file I have on my computer. It splits every file up. One reading as a .mpeg and another as a .modd file extension.
Jayson_ > David, the MPEG is the video file.
Jayson_ > The other files are the supporting files.
David Lawrence > yes, it pulls up the menu to play it in various media players or opens the file directly, that's where I see that it is.
David Lawrence > But it has no audio!!!!
Jayson_ > It seems to be an issue with the software that you're using.
Jayson_ > Are you able to playback the video normally along with audio using the supplied software?
David Lawrence > it's a Sony
David Lawrence > yes, the Picture Motion browser plays it fine but when I try to bring it into my video editing software or Windows media player it doesn't recognize it
Jayson_ > This confirms that the video file is not compatible with that softwares.
David Lawrence > but it worked before with my other Sony video camera but on the HDR-SR5 the software messed it up
David Lawrence > i edited video and loaded it fine with my Sony dcr-sr200
David Lawrence > but when I loaded the hdr-sr5 it split the file into an mpeg and a modd and no longer plays the audio
Jayson_ > David, the operations are guaranteed only with the supplied software.
David Lawrence > so you can't help, all my video files are ruined!!!
Jayson_ > I'm really sorry for the inconvenience of not able to playback the edited video file.
David Lawrence > that is bogus, i will return it and never buy a Sony again this conversation will be displayed at every online review for Sony
Jayson_ > I apologize for the inconvenience caused, David.
Jayson_ > Have a Nice Day!
Jayson_ > Thank you for contacting Sony online support today.

It works SO GOOD, but the only problem is that it doesnt focus super fast. But. other than that, everything is super amazing!! totally worth the $$$!

The picture quality and sound are incredible. Make sure you use the HDMI cable-much better picture. The only concern I have is how do you edit & store HD video?? Newer Sony supplied sortward is neede.

Fantastic Camcorder - love the colors and ease of use. The sound is also realy good - highly recommend it.
Joe

I bought the Sony camcorder last month to take on a tour to Japan. The shipping was fast and free. Fortunately I tested it before going on tour. I tried to follow the instructions for loading the software on to my HP computer I bought about 18 months ago. I could not get my computer to burn a DVD of my test recording. I tried 5 times using different methods and gave up. I was able to view my test video on my computer but the video and sound were not in sink. I paid for a new camcorder but the box I received had been opened. That would have been OK if I could have gotten everything to work right. The tech guy at HP said he could get my PC to burn the CD if I paid $100. Since I was not sure I could get eveything to work right I sent the camcorder back to Amazon. They promptly refunded my money. I will continue to buy from them.

It really is a great camera, lots of fun and excellent quality, and very easy to use, just keep in mind it has a hard drive so it cannot sustain vibration. I purchased mine to take motorcycle videos and it couldnt record, so i replaced it with the cx7 that does the job well!

Sony HD camera video formats are not supported by any editing software other than Sony Vegas which is NOT included with this camera. If you plan to edit your videos, you're screwed unless you buy the $120 Vegas Pro software! Do not buy this camera if you are looking for easy editing!

Also, this camera has no eyepiece viewer and is essentially useless when filiming outdoors.

This items is excellent, has enought capability to record more than 500 hours at HD (1080p), recommeded, the price also is great!!!

Love this new Sony HD cam. It's easy to use and creates great video footage in clarity that might embarrass you. Don't forget that bikini wax...Also, you will need to purchase an HDMI cable separately for hookup to your TV.

I bought this camera abt a month ago. This is my first Handycam, and so far I am very satisfied with its performance (in daylight as well as night). The only problem I found was in its software. In the time I've spent trying to play with the s/w, so far I have not been able to find a simple functionality for concatenating to videos.

pros:
exellent performance
no camera clicking sound problem (someone wrote it in their review)
compact HD camera.

cons:
software is not so intuitive.
revords in AVCHD format, which is not as well known.

Hihi,

Great quality videos especially in daylight. Easy Mode only allows SD vids, but you can disable the easy mode to enable the 1080 HD video recoding.

Nice pics witht he 4 MP camera part. Flash is good and snappy shot-to-shot.

Pinnacle and Ulead latest versions of their software allow users to edit this new AVCHD format. You have to connect the camera to the dock and the USB to the PC. Turn it on. Run Ulead (for example) and import via the USB. There are other options such as using Virtual Dub with xvid/ divx codecs, etc.

Sony HDR-SR5 AVCHD 4MP 40GB High Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom
Plays back awesome video with HDMI onto the HDTV. Editing though is an absolute mess, included software next to worthless and the usual sony quirkiness is definitely messing up a good product. One more thing CMOS is not an approximation for CCDs. Buyers please be aware.

Best HDD camcorder that is not HD. I have owned tape and mini DVD camcorders in the past and they are a burden to say the least. 40 GB HDD is plenty space for recording. Colors are great and the 6.1 MP pictures are pretty good too. Only thing to remember is to manually adjust to Outdoors/Indoor for more accurate colors. It isn't a big deal but it will improve overall video. I personally love the infrared video capability, even though is a green video it is always good for filming were a light would not be practical ( like a baby's face when sleeping,etc). Overall, great camcorder, love the LCD touchscreen it is way better than I tought and the video on low light is decent altough I wish it was better. Hope it helps.

I've been using this camera for almost 3 months now. I really like the quality for the most part and having the video go directly to a digitized format is awesome. However, I do have some serious problems with a few things.

1. No USB connection on the camera body.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, I really don't understand why they didn't add a port as important as the one for the USB connection directly on the camera body. That is basically the only way for you to transfer the video files directly to your computer. It seems like either of the ports for the A/V Out or the Component connection (which I hardly use) could have been left to the base if it was a space issue, or perhaps even the mini-HDMI port (which I think they should have included an adapter to standard HDMI for).

If they HAD included the USB port on the camera body, there wouldn't be a need for the base at all. The more I think about it, the more nonsensical it seems. Of course, perhaps there was some engineering issue that made it more feasible....but for $700 bucks, I don't want to have to make excuses for them or figure out why they made something more complicated when it could have been so simple.

Also, although the newer versions USB seem to be overtaking firewire, they could have put that type of connection on the base rather than additional component and A/V ports which are already on the camera body.

2. Shooting in low light has lots of noise.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I thought the CMOS sensor on this camera was supposed to eliminate noise in low light situations, but from what I can tell, shooting outside at night or even in dark rooms, there's plenty of noticeable noise in the dark regions of the video image, even when shooting at the highest quality level, HD XP. I don't know if it's something I can have checked out, perhaps my sensor just isn't working properly, but in any case, that's been somewhat of a disappointment for me.

What I expected was video quality like that in the movie Collateral, which had lots of great night shots using HD cameras. Maybe that is a bit too much for a consumer camera, but still, I expected more.

Also, another problem that I've found with night shots, is that the auto-focus has a really hard time getting zeroed in on the right area. I usually have to end up focusing it manually if I want a consistently clear shot at night.

3. The bundled software doesn't convert to an uncompressed format.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Since AVCHD is a relatively new format, I was certain that they would have a feature in the software to convert clips to some more universal uncompressed format. But the software that comes with the camera only has the option to export the video to MPEG2, which creates a clear loss in quality. So, I don't understand why they wouldn't make it easier for us to convert the video into some more widely used format with that losing that HD clarity. I know there are third party applications that do this, but Sony should have provided this feature with the camera.

Additionally, working with the AVCHD format is a pain in general. In order to view the video on your computer as a video file, you have to import it using the Sony Picture Utility software that comes on a CD-ROM with the camera. When it imports the files to a selected destination folder, you actually get 3 files for every video clip you've shot. The extensions are 'm2tsm', 'modd', and 'moff'. The 'm2tsm' file is the one that actually contains the video data (I had to assume since it's always the largest). I'm not sure what the others are for.

Even after you've installed all the provided software, you can't just double click a video file to open it. You have to "Register" the folder the video files are in in the Picture Motion Browser. Only then can you view your video. They have a program called 'Player for AVCHD', beut it stupidly only plays the video on your camera harddrive, and doesn't even have an option to directly open the files on your computer. Personally, I've found the software to be more cumbersome than useful. The program doesn't have an option to move folders, so if you do move the files, you have to re-register them and delete the old folders from the Picture Motion Browser yourself. While it's nice in someways to keep things organized, it's not really that helpful. And the editing features made available are almost completely worthless, unless all you want to do is split a clip in two.


Despite it's shortcomings, I still think it's a decent camera, although I really wish they had better software with more editing features. Still, I think it's worth $700 or so for the clear image (in daylight) and the convienice of having the video go directly to a harddrive. Despite it's shortcomings, this might actually be the best HD harddrive camcorders on the market, but having not had the opportunity to try any others, I can't say that for sure. What I can say is that it's good, even if it's not perfect.

*I had to edit this because I kept thinking of other things I had problems with. And the more I thought about the file format situation, the more annoyed I became. So I think I would have to modify my recommendation and say that you should just wait until future versions to buy this camera when they improve the software or just try out another camera altogether. Considering these other difficulties, I think I would have to drop my rating to a 2 out of 5 stars.

The picture quality and features on the camera are great, BUT...

Sony shot itself in the foot when it decided to push the AVCHD video format. You are forced to use Sony's substandard software tools; there is no good conversion story if you want your video in MP4. WMV, or any other format. So, Adobe Premiere (which I use for all my home editing) is useless, as is Edius, Ulead VideoStudio, or anything else.

After reading about the quality, I bought this camera to take video of my son's wedding. Now, about all I can do is make a raw video onto DVD of the footage and give away copies, as opposed to putting together something nice for them.

If all you're going to do is shoot video, and play video from the camera to a TV, then go ahead and buy it; if you have any intention of bring the footage into a computer, then avoid this camera like the plague.

I got this camera and pleased with it's look, video quality and ease of operation. I shoot some video inside the house and outside, I was pleased with it's outdoor quality, unbeatable recording and audio recording is more than perfect, audio doesn't annoy you like when you are speaking behind the camera and someone talking in front is well balanced and clear. I had problem with this with my old camera that it picked my voice too loud and others are still soft.

There is something to learn from experience that this camera works great indoor with some kind of lights only, I tried with soft white bulbs and it works better than my expectation (ofcourse I don't expect cameras to work great with low indoor light and people who complains about it are expecting too much from the cameras). But it sucks when you use yellow-red bulb light. Still thinking what could be a better choice for it?

Still-photo-camera is great asset to it, with built-in flash, it is great even though I chose less than 2MegaPixel resolution, pictures appears sharp. Sony is not a great technology to capture the exact/natural colors but it makes the picture more colorful with it's own selection of colors (I am a canon user for last 2 years and I think Canon and Olympus are generating more natural colors than sony). I Felt that small flash is not good enough for outdoor pictures in night (you definitely need an external flash and this camera has provision for it).

Missed the view-finder. I still wish if the camera has view finder to give me an alternate to LCD screen. I believe it's matter of getting used to it.

Super bright night-shot, it converts almost everything to black&white, hence though it's powerful than most of the cameras, not useful in most of the cases.

Camera lens is what puzzled me. If I put it in still-camera mode it gives me a wide angle coverage but if I change it to video mode it covers less widen area. With that I strongly feel that one needs a wide angle lens, otherwise it's almost impossible to shoot indoor.

As someone already mentioned, menus are not user friendly and I agree 100% with him.

What pleases me is the great video quality. I took the videos of this snowfall and with HD quality, it appears like watching the live video. Even without HD the quality is high and watching on 32 inch or less, it appears the same. I could snap pictures while recording the video. While I am still exploring the features, I recommend it for the people who are looking for a more outdoor shooting than indoor (with less light). It can be a too costly for newbies who don't know how to use most of the features and change everytime according to needs. Semi-professionals people will always find it a great buy.

This is my first camcorder ever. I am satisfied except for the HD part. The high definition recording when transferred to computer was a read only file. It runs only on the Sony utility (given along with the purchase). But still the video and audio do not go together, and some frames in the video are dropped. Actually Sony itself has mention this problem with high definition recording in one of the leaflets.
The simple definition recording is fine and works with windows media player too. Photos also seemed to be good. I was looking forward for a high definition recording, but disappointed that it didn't work out. So giving 4 stars.

its a good product with good enough memory and worth every bit what i paid for it, around 700 bucks.

I like this camcorder in general. It's easy to use, all the funations are good. The software that came with it is good as well. You can do simple editing by using it. Have not noticed the popping sound other ppl complained about. Guess I'm lucky on that. Just one complaint -- The image, both movie and still, all kind of blueish. I guess there's a way I can tune up the color better, but I'd assume the camera would come with best tuned color as default? Also, the pictures in dark area are not as sharp as you'd it like to be. Since this is the first camcorder of mine, there's no comparison with others.

I bought this camcorder three weeks ago and so far am very impressed by its high quality performance. I did some post processing using Sony Vegas Platinum 8 and subsequently Corel Ulead Video Plus 11.5. Unfortunatelly Sony Vegas does not support AVCHD disk production so the output quality was similar to my old camcorder DCR-DVD 403. However with the Corel Ulead Plus I was able to produce AVCHD DVD's with sparkling quality and even low light clips were crisp and hardly needed any post processing. It is a great video camera, so far I have not tested its picture camera performance.

This particular camera has a great picture and takes great pictures as well. The only thing i didnt like was the ability to record in one format only. The controls are easy to figure out in my opinion.

HE ONLY BAD THING IS THE IMAGE IN THE NIGHT. THERE IS SOME KIND OF NOISE IN THE BLACK COLOUR. BUT IS A GREAT CAMERA.

You can not find such a good video image for such a price! Great choice

Well, this is a good entry level HD camcorder. We purchased this before Christmas and the price was perfect ($300 less than what we saw in Best Buy and Circuit City). Couldn't beat that price. This camera is easy to use. The picture quality is amazingly clear. I love the fact it's got a HD, so no need to have SD cards (there is a slot which you can use).

One thing I'm not a big fan of, is Sony's software format (AVCHD or something like that). It makes it hard to convert to DVD format. There is a docking station it comes with and there's a "copy" disc" feature. I have not used that as I have tried to scour the web to find a coverting program that is econimcally feasible to buy. Until then, I can download the videos to our PC for future copying.

Another thing this camera doesn't have is a "viewfinder". I never even though about that until I was actually using the camcorder. You need to use the LCD display (which also drains the battery faster than a viewfinder would). After using the camcorder, I miss the viewfinder, but that's only my opinion.

I got this camcorder a few weeks ago and have tested it in a few different locations and under a few different lighting conditions. I bought it specifically because it was on sale, and it is compatible with my iMac (intel based). Overall, I'm less than impressed with the quality of the camera when considering how much it was originally priced at. However, since I purchased it at a "steal" of a price I'm taking it all in stride.


Positives:
-Lightweight
-Takes "on the fly" still pictures during video recording
-Easy to use menu system
-Works with my iMac! (Intel based iMac and iMovie '08) No problems so far.
-Harddrive storage for video
-SD storage for still shots
-battery life is decent on all settings (not great, but not bad. Decent)
-all normal video/cam controls are easily reachable w/out using left hand




Negatives:
-The video capture to my computer takes an eternity; longer than I have recorded.
-Does NOT handle low light situations well AT all. Very grainy.
-Does not seem to auto-focus in low light situations.
-Low light pictures are downright awful.
-Pictures taken in the best of lighting conditions are very low quality
-Handle/strap is uncomfortable (weird). The cam flops away from my hand.
-I consider the boot up time to be "extensive".
-no view finder
-"on the fly" still pictures is limited to 3. After 3 you must stop and restart video recording in order to take more
-no hook up areas for an extra lanyard or anything of that sort
-zoom is incredibly sensitive. It "goes" so fast it's completely unrealistic and almost uncontrollable.




If I were to give a bottom line right now I'd say that unless I come into some grand understanding of how I have my camcorder set at the wrong settings, this puppy's probably going back. It's a powerful little beast, but it certainly rears it's ugly head in low light conditions, and I want to have all the kinks worked out before High School Football season rolls around. I'm getting plenty of practice in before I "need" to use it for the real deal. I'll need to be sure this cam takes great distance shots during night games under the lights. If it won't do that, I will be returning it and finding something that does.

It makes a beautiful crisp video. I didn't realize that there is no mic input or earphone output jack. The internal mic works well though. For the money you can't beat it!

This is my first video cam so I'm speaking as a totally newcomer to this world.
I must say it is a great camera with a great HD video quality compared to SD, although it is not very good with low light.

This is a good product with very good characteristics.

I've had this for a few months and am really pleased with it. I've taken many movies, still shots within the movie, and just plain still shots. The quality is exceptional!

I spent a lot of money on this camera and thought it would work well with my VAIO laptop but the other reviews are accurate - Sony has horrible support and you can't do much with the videos. I'm insulted that they would expect me to pay another $200 just to do some editing. If you have a Mac (we have both) it wont work with it. The CD that came in the box was damaged so I couldn't even transfer my files to the PC without paying $30. Sony was arrogant when working with them. Stay away....

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.

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.

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.