Sony HDR-SR1 Digital Camcorder Review

The new Sony Handycam HDR-SR1 is a small hard disk-based camcorder and new about it is the new compression technology called AVHCD on which it is built upon. This immediately gives the lightweight camcorder up to 11 hours worth of video recording time in 1080i HD resolution out of the box, a feat that is currently unmatched.

The key difference between traditional SD camcorders and HD models such as the HDR-SR1 is recording resolution. Where SD footages of 480p recorded by SD camcorders will appear coarse and pixilated on HD-ready TVs, there is no such issue with the HDR-SR1. What you’ll notice instead is an immediate improvement in video details and overall sharpness. Facial features in particular will be more noticeable.

Using the new compression format, the SONY HDR-SR1 is able to record HD video at up to 15Mb/sec MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and the end result is almost as good as DV tape. Not only did the built-in 30GB HDD offer storage capacity for up to 11 hours of video, it also made editing and deleting of unwanted segments much easier than tape-based camcorders.

HardwareZone