12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Great camcorder with one drawback
Date of Review: Feb 20, 2009
The Bottom Line: Great camera, durable, but be ready to deal with the file format
I shoot multimedia (still and video) for a living, and have spent a lot of hours with a fancycam on my shoulder. So I love having this little camera, and so does my back.
On the plus side, the video is excellent, and the audio works well for a camera with no mic jack. You'll get hours of recording onto the internal drive. I often use the micro sd slot as well, it's very convenient.
It's nice that it has a light, but don't expect it to fill a room, it's mostly good for close interview shots.
The zoom range is great, even without getting into the digital zoom range. However, I do find it difficult to get a smooth zoom-the lever is just too small for my fingers. I'm always bumping it to a higher speed halfway through the move.
I see another reviewer got great battery life, but I didn't have that experience. An hour, maybe an hour thirty, and I'm done. So I just bought an extra battery and remote charger.
It feels well built, and I like the built in lens protection.
The only drawback I can find, and it's a big one, is the fact that it saves in .mod files. Yep, .mod, which is not a widely recognized format. It does come with a light version of some editing software though, and Windows Movie Maker in Vista will work the files okay.
Basically, an MOD file is an MPEG 2 file with different audio. So you can change it to an M2v extension, and some editing programs will work the files. Adobe Premier will if you add a file to the root directory (availiable on the net) and interpret the footage before using it.
If all of that scares you, or you don't understand it, just know that it comes with software that will work, and new versions of moviemaker will too, so don't worry.
