With the popularity of posting low-resolution video to the web showing no signs of waning, it's easy to see why the Sony Handycam DCR-SR45 exists. It's very easy to use, goes from off to recording in seconds, is small enough to throw in a bag and go, and its internal 30GB hard drive gives you anywhere from seven to 20 hours of recording time depending on the quality settings you choose. While okay for online sharing, the camcorder's standard-definition, MPEG-2 video — even at the highest quality settings — doesn't look very good. If you've gotten used to the definition and clarity of HD video, the SR45 won't be satisfying.
Design
At only 350g without battery and measuring just 76mm wide, 77mm high and 113mm deep, the silver-and-black SR45 is compact and lightweight. Compared to its predecessor, the DCR-SR42, Sony has improved the body design. The power/movie/still dial sits more in line with your thumb, while the dead-centre record button lets you start fast without much thought. Above it are power and activity lights topped by a Quick On button that takes the camcorder quickly in and out of standby mode. On top sit the camera shutter button for taking stills and the rocker switch for the 40x zoom lens. The switch operates smoothly, as does the zoom, allowing for stutter-free close-ups. However, since it lacks optical image stabilisation, those extreme close-ups will require a tripod.
Features
At the front above the lens sits a stereo zoom microphone — it attenuates with the lens to better capture the audio coming from the subject — which performed much better than expected. Under the lens is a switch to open and close the built-in lens cover. There are no microphone or headphone jacks, which would be welcome, but manufacturers tend to jettison these features from budget models. What you will find under a sliding door on the right side is a mini-USB port and an AV-out designed for use with the included cable. Another sliding door on top — which looks very similar to an accessory shoe cover, but those are also rare in this price class — hides a Memory Stick Pro Duo card slot. While a flip-down door below the main control dial hides the jack for the power cable. All these cover-ups make for a clean appearance. Hidden in plain sight off on the inside of the grip is the switch for the camcorder's Nightshot Plus infrared light, which lets you capture creepy night-vision video of people sleeping or whatever else you choose to shoot in complete darkness.
You access all menus through the 2.7-inch wide-aspect touchscreen LCD. Despite the use of tiny onscreen icons to navigate settings, the screen was both very responsive and accurate to tapping. There are two menu systems: a Home menu to get to all feature settings and an Options menu to get directly to the available functions for video and still images, such as focus, white balance, and recording modes. It might take a while to remember when and how to use the menus, but again the screen is so responsive that flying through the menus to find what you need goes fairly fast. There's also a set of four buttons — home, zoom in, zoom out, and start/stop recording — lining the left of the LCD's bezel that come in handy when recording overhead or at a low angle.
Performance
Maybe we've become spoiled by the sharpness and detail of HD video, but as with many budget standard-def camcorders we found the SR45's video quality disappointing. Worse though is that image quality doesn't appear to have improved from the SR42. Video looks soft, with quite a bit of noise and artefacting, until you scale down to YouTube-size dimensions. Anyone planning on full-screen playback on even a small TV will likely be unhappy with the results. If you still live completely in a low-resolution world or simply want to capture the moment no matter how it looks, the SR45 will suffice. But you might get better photos out of your camera phone. On the upside, it performs pretty well, with responsive auto-focus, pretty good white balance, and fast auto-exposure.
Conclusion
The Sony Handycam DCR-SR45 is better than most entry-level HDD camcorders. Its compact, lightweight build is great for grab-and-go videos. The 30GB hard drive allows for plenty of storage, plus you can save video and stills to Memory Stick Pro Duo cards up to 8GB in size. And it's easy to operate thanks in part to a responsive, 2.7-inch touchscreen LCD. Sadly, it's only the video quality that doesn't live up to the rest of the package. But if you don't care about that, neither do we.
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kanay
20/05/2008, 06:35 PM
rating
8/10
This is a very good video camera, small but still comfortable to use. Very handy to record to hard drive or memory stick and to copy, move, delete stuff instantly. Great to take on holidays or events. Would have bought a High Definition model but none come with 40x optical zoom.
Pros: Excellent optical zoom 40x, infrared night shot, great sound quality, easy to copy to computer and DVD, compact, and cheap. Even with all the Cons still an excellent camera for the price.
Cons: No night light for standard dark shots, no view finder as screen is hard to see in bright sunlight, manual focusing/whitebalance/etc uses lcd screen makes it hard to use and shaky, average quality still shots, no remote control, can't add text while videoing.
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cazzascorp
10/05/2008, 05:29 PM
rating
6/10
This is a pretty good video camera for the price if you want a small, light camera with pretty good image quality and great zoom capacity and no hassle Hard drive recording.
Pros: the 40x optical zoom is very handy and the camera is very easy to use. The touch screen LCD was new for me having not had a camera with this before , but I find it quite user friendly and saves space on the camera body which means the camera is very small and fits in your palm almost. The continuous recordnig ability on the hard drive was great.
Cons: the low light resolution on the video image is pretty grainy and Sony could really do with working on this. But if you aren't really a low light image quality snob, which I'm not, it's fine for home videos of the kids and so on and for holiday videos. The battery life is OK and about average, but you need to buy some backups for continuous recording or get a long life battery which aren't cheap. There is some camera shake at maximum zoom so you'd definitely need a tripod for long range wildlife videoing.
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