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Sony DCR-SR100Sony’s HDD cam delivers MiniDV performance, at least when compression doesn’t compromise the picture. Price:
$999
by Russ Fischer 
We don’t get very excited by DVD camcorders, which tend to record mediocre-looking video (and very little of it) straight to optical media. But a camcorder with a 30GB hard drive and a software package that allows one-touch DVD creation gets our attention. Sony’s $1,000 DCR-SR100 stores over seven hours of MPEG-2 video on its hard drive with simulated surround sound. The performance sometimes rivals MiniDV, though compression artifacts persist.
At 1.6 pounds, this unit is heavier than the average camcorder, which makes it easier to hold steady, and the cylindrical design means it will fit in almost any palm. The large 2.7-inch LCD is clear and bright and features zoom and record controls on the outer edge of the panel. Most of the camera’s controls are available through only a touchscreen interface. Unfortunately, the menus are densely layered and hardly intuitive. Even experienced users will be frustrated trying to change settings, and there’s no way to make adjustments quickly and easily. The touchscreen is good for reviewing shots, however. In Playback mode, every clip and photo stored on the drive appears as a thumbnail, which you can quickly view or delete. The same switch turns the camera on and selects Video, Photo, or Playback modes. The zoom switch is well placed and sensitive (in a good way). A separate switch marked Easy puts the camera in full Auto mode for shooters interested only in getting a subject on video. Performance is initially promising but ultimately inconsistent. When the camera and subjects were relatively static, our footage looked exceptionally crisp with excellent color fidelity. Low-light performance was also admirable, with noise and grain not significantly marring the image until light levels dipped below 20 Lux. We photographed a wedding from a tripod and performers at an outdoor festival; in both cases the quality was comparable to MiniDV—a first for non-tape-based camcorders. As camera movement was introduced, however, limitations of the DCR-SR100’s MPEG-2 encoding became apparent. Artifacts appeared on contrast lines and at the edges of moving objects. When camera movement was combined with overly detailed frames or complex textures, the artifacts were severe enough to be distracting. Even so, Sony’s MPEG-2 compression has its advantages. You can easily drag the video files from camera to computer using a USB cable with no extra drivers or codecs. In some cases, you can edit and burn footage directly to DVD without a final layer of compression. The battery will never last long enough to fill the drive, but we shot for nearly two hours with intermittent use of the zoom functions. Although the DCR-SR100 produces compression artifacts, in many cases they may not be worse than what a MiniDV user would find after compressing footage from tape to DVD using a simplified authoring application. Power users, however, will be frustrated that Sony has provided no customization options for in-camera compression. Manual controls are few, and because of Sony’s proprietary Active Interface hot shoe, it’s compatible with only Sony accessories. There is no way to connect an external microphone other than Sony’s specified models, for example. When it comes to shooting photos, the DCR-SR100 is better than most camcorders, but it’s no replacement for a standalone still camera. The three-megapixel shots (which can be in widescreen or 4:3 format) retain the imaging chip’s sharpness and color accuracy and look good when printed. Without more flexible manual controls, however, the DCR-S100 is as effective as a large point-and-shoot. The supplied ImageMixer software can quickly burn all the files on the cam’s hard drive to a DVD (or batch of DVDs). The interface is sparse, and the demand for system resources high; the software worked fine on our desktop (with a 3.8-GHz Pentium 4 processor with hyper-threading and 1GB of RAM), but it stuttered and once locked up a Compaq Presario notebook. The discs ImageMixer produced worked with all the DVD players we tried (three home models, two laptops, and a portable). Sony has delivered solid performance with its first hard-drive based camcorder. Ranked solely among flash-based and HDD cameras, it’s at the top of the heap. But $1,000 is a hefty price, especially when you can get better performance from MiniDV cams costing half as much. If HDD recording is irresistible, the DCR-SR100 is an understandable splurge. Compare Prices | Sony DCR-SR100 Specifications
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