Design
Late in February, CNET.com.au had a hands-on preview of Sony's top consumer high-definition HDV camcorder, the AU$2,299 Handycam HDR-HC7. We were impressed with its design and our views haven't changed much now that we've had a chance to properly review it, although we've found a few chinks in its armour. Gone is the dowdy grey exterior of the HDR-HC3 that it supersedes. In its place is a combination of ribbed metal on the lens barrel, and a mix of black and silver plastic elsewhere. It feels nice and substantial in the hand, with the major controls -- the zoom toggle, photo shutter, mode/power dial and record button -- being easily operated by one's thumb and index finger. There are smaller HD camcorders on the market but we found the HDR-HC7's size, shape and weight very comfortable and stable for hand held recording. We did find the zoom toggle to works a bit too quickly, however, and it requires a sensitive finger to be able to zoom in and out slowly to not give viewers a sense of motion sickness.
As with the rest of Sony's Handycam range, minor and manual controls are accessed via touch-screen menus on the flip-out LCD screen. While a neat solution to the problem button overload, the LCD can quickly get smudged and dirty. It also makes adjusting settings like exposure, shutter speed, white balance and manual focussing a slower and more fiddly process than on cameras with a dedicated manual controller. In what can be seen as an acknowledgement of this, Sony provides a scroll wheel and button combo which can be assigned to a specific manual control. Unfortunately, this combination is deeply flawed. The wheel suffers sometimes from being overly sensitive, while at other times not registering anything until you've scrolled for several seconds, plus the button is hard to depress without shaking the camera. Coupled with its location on the front of the lens barrel -- it's completely hidden from view when the LCD screen is flipped out -- and you'll quickly be running back to the menu system. It's a pity that the HDR-SR1's 3.5-inch LCD didn't make the cut for the HDR-HC7. The 2.7-inch it's fitted with does an OK job and there's a electronic viewfinder too, although like many of its ilk, it has a significant blue cast to it.
Features
The spec sheet looks much as it did for the HDR-HC3. The biggest changes are the rise in the CMOS sensor's pixel count from 4- to 6.1-megapixels, the introduction of new longer-life batteries, and microphone and headphone jacks. Carried over are optical image stabilisation, dual recording, smooth slow record and the 10x Carl Zeiss T* zoom lens.
Photo storage is constrained by the fact the HDR-HC7 only has MemoryStick Pro Duo slot, so if you have no other Sony devices in your tech cabinet, be prepared to shell out some more money. Transferring photos off the camera is no hassle with the supplied USB cable, however things are a little more complicated with video, especially for those using HDV/miniDV for the first time. Firstly, you'll need a FireWire port on your computer -- which Sony confusingly refers to as i.Link. Once connected and with the import tool running, you'll need to play the footage back in real time. Professionals and HDV/miniDV fanciers will wax lyrical about recording straight to tape, without any of the lag or write issues of other media, however more casual users should weigh up their needs before jumping in. Displaying your works of cinemagraphic genius from the camera is a snap, though. There are connections for component out, A/V out and HDMI out, with cables supplied for the first two.
As with all removeable media camcorders, be prepared to stock up on media. With miniDV/HDV you can store 60 minutes of footage on one cassette. Those with itchy trigger fingers might want to check out Sony's hard-disk high-def camcorder, the HDR-SR1.
Performance
The HDR-HC7 takes about 5 seconds to start up, but once up and running video can be shot at any moment. In video mode, you can also take up to three 4.6-megapixel still photos, which are written to the MemoryStick once you stop recording. These pictures have less vertical resolution than stills taken in the camera's dedicated photo mode, and are in the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. Regardless of the mode they were taken, all photos taken with the Handycam have the quality of a good compact camera.
In smooth slow record mode, up to three seconds of action be slowed down to a quarter the normal speed. This is great if you trying to deconstruct your golf swing, tennis serve or some such. Those hoping to re-create the slow-mos seen on sporting coverage nowadays will be disappointed because the footage is captured in low-res.
When we played back our standard test scenes shot around Sydney's Chinatown on a high-def projector, even the most sceptical amongst were impressed. Projecting an image roughly 107-inches diagonally, the video was incredibly sharp and if there were any image quality issues we would have easily spotted them. After a week of viewing, we could only find a few minor niggles. Objects moving quickly across the screen, like cars on a street, suffered from excessive motion blur and ghosting. Otherwise, the HDR-HC7 handles movement with great detail. Its performance in light and shady environments was excellent too, with good automatic adjustment that finds a happy medium between the two extremes. Compression artifacts could only be noticed when play was paused and we were sitting uncomfortably close to the screen or projection. Every so often, the camera was caught hunting for focus, with the only solution being to point the camera elsewhere before pointing back at the subject.
The sound captured by the HDR-HC7 was good for a small camcorder and had remarkably good bass pick up. For more professional quality work, an external mic can be plugged in.
