The HC1 and A1 have gotten good reviews. The big news is the cmos chip, plus all the features you pointed out. The HC1 or A1 with vegas makes a great starting kit for HDV projects with tight budgets. Your books, Sony equipment plus vegas software, Vic's DVD on lighting and Hollywood Camera Work's Master Course In "High-End Blocking And Staging", ..... some serious IDF work in the HDV market. could happen

Now if I could only come up with $1700 I could shoot my doc in HDV. When does this thing start shipping/selling?

I've got two of them sitting right next to me, not bad for the money and certainly not a Z1 but as Spot noted a few annoyances, being a bottom loading transport that's a pain but also the battery goes in from the bottom. If you've got a long release plate or a Beachtek you'll have a real drama not only changing tapes but also batteries.

Battery life might be a real issue as the EVF doesn't slide back like the TRV80s which means any battery bigger than the smallest M series makes the EVF hard to use and those little batteries will not last too long.

We had these two on display at SMPTE today hooked up to a 23" HP monitor and under the harsh lighting of the show the highlights looked pretty blown out to me, much worse than the Z1 and there was a lot of smear on movement. This was taking the feed pre the encoders from the component outputs, haven't had a chance to try recording as yet. Also the image did look rather noisy.

Still for the money it's a pretty good effort, apart from that silly hotshoe thing, hopefully Sony will see the error of their ways and make some form of normal shoe adaptor for it. Even if it's not a Z1 it can do one thing the Z1 cannot, almost fit in your pocker so I'd say it's a great camera for holidays, as Spot noted, you'll not attract attention with this baby and many times that can make the difference between getting the shot or being shown the door and in some parts of the world a few more doors you don't want to see, ever.

Bob.

thanks for the review Spot, this seems like it would be a great B roll and 16x9 still cam for my uses.
Gotta save up some more cash !
I like to see one in action, are you gonna post some a/b comps with the Z1?

Very interesting camera. I was looking at it on sonystyle.com and read the following in the camera spec's:

"Super SteadyShot® Image Stabilization System
Picture stabilization system that uses motion sensors to detect and compensate for camera "shake" without compromising picture quality like some other digital stabilization systems."

Is that an optical stabilization system, or not? It sure sounds like one, but I'm confused because the last sentence seems to be differentiating it from some "other" digital stabilization systems.

Apit, where did you see a review of the A1? I'm not aware of anyone who's shot anything with it. (not that it doesn't exist...)
2road, it's optical stabilization.

I wish the bottom mount issue could easily be dealt with by some enterprising inventor that could create some sort of standoff for the product. Would surely be nice. Then getting the tape out and battery off wouldnt be any sort of an issue.
Yeah, Patrick, if you think you'd have been happy doing your project in DV....for under 1700.00 this thing is da bomb. Quality for buck, it's currently unmatched, IMO.

Spot, OOPS...... A1 is the prosumer model of cmos ship, big brother to C1, similar in options to the Z1. About 6 months, in a show and tell, design group meeting, with Apple, Sony and IBM, this and a few more high-end items were being promoted. Sony had an internal deadline for a July "mass" printing of the new cameras, and few other items, to offset the marketing impact from NAB.

Got my hands on the A1 or whatever it's called today, WAY better camera than the C1.
1. Its has a real hotshoe.
2. It can record in DVCAM, not a big deal for most in itself but that does mean all the TC stuff hasn't been clobbered. I suspect whatever Sony has done to the C1 is what's causing grief with HDV and batch capture.
3. You get balanced audio and an almost decent microphone.

Don't know much beyond that, well you don't get a popup flash, shucks, you loose that to make way for the hotshoe.
I'll try to get more info but I'm told there's a total of 30 improvements in the A1 compared to the C1. I'll try to sneak a tape into the C1 and see how it records / captures, worth it just for the nice model Sony is providing at the show.

One word of warning, the HC1 will NOT record from analogue inputs, I believe the NTSC version will but not the PAL version. I hope this isn't the case for the A1, will check that out as well.

For my money the idea of the HC1 and a Beachtek is a real no go, that'd mean having to take the camera off the tripod, unscrew the release plate, then unscrew the Beachteck and then change the tape or battery and then reverse all that remembering to plug that Beachtek back in again, now way. I don't know the price differential but when you subtract the cost of a Beachtek and a decent mic it cannot be much to avoid all that aggravation.

Bob.

farss, check out A1 options, especially lcd in record mode,(think near future expansion). A1 for fx1 prices...... Remember this cmos chip is over 2 years old. With microlens beginning mass produce for ccds, think....add improved microlens, plus more pixals,+ a few design tricks.....

Spot, in response to my prior post, you said it's optical stabilization on the HDR-HC1. Here is how Sony describes the optical stabilization on the HDR-FX1:

"Super SteadyShot® Optical Stabilization System
An advanced form of Sony’s SteadyShot Image Stabilization system that controls an even higher range of shake and vibration frequencies. This optical stabilization system achieves an even higher level of smoothness without degradation of video like some digital stabilization systems."

and, again, here is the wording for the stabilization on the HDR-HC1:

"Super SteadyShot® Image Stabilization System
Picture stabilization system that uses motion sensors to detect and compensate for camera "shake" without compromising picture quality like some other digital stabilization systems."

There's a big differnce in the wording. Have you confirmed with Sony that the HC1 has a true Optical stabilization system? I'm kind of interested in this unit but in that price range, I would want an optical stabilization system. Thanks.

I'm not too certain what you mean but I'll try to get away from manning our stand for long enough to have a better play with this baby. I don't favour CCDs over CMOS or anything else for that matter, all that matters is how the recorded image looks.
I suspect CMOS is the way of the future, remember this is a pretty small CMOS imager, perhaps CCDs can be made better, I sure suspect the need for having 3 imaging devices is going to get killed off one way or the other, if they can build a 2K res camera using a single CCD why are we stuck having to use 3 of the things and all the attendant costs and complications.

For what it's worth, I talked with Sony sales and they said the HC1 uses an electronic image stabilization system, not an optical image stabilization system like its big brother(s). I'm still going to keep the HC1 on my radar. I'm seeing some nice prices for it. The bottom loading design is messy. I wonder when manufacturers will figure out that that is the #1 gripe from users who actually have to work with their cameras in time-sensitive situations.

Here's a good confusion. Sony Austin (cust service in US) says electronic. Sony Hong Kong says optical....I didn't have anything to test for smear when I had this cam, and had to return it to Hong Kong yesterday. So I don't know the answer for certain. I'd like to, but frankly based on the handheld stuff I shot of extremely contrasted footage (KLCC at night) on extreme zoom where even a lightweight tripod will shudder a bit, the shots look wonderful.

Spot-

So what's the better buy, this cheapest of HDV cameras or a nice DV camera for around the same price? Given that I don't need HDV, is the overall image quality significantly better than a nice 3 CCD DV camera (like the GL2)?

Tattoo

has m2t files with timecode so you can line them up on the timeline. As close as Velcro mounting would allow me to get them toether...so theyu're pretty close.

Hope you find the answer you're looking for. If I didn't have a bundle to spend...this is definitely in the list of "wanna haves." I'm really excited about the A1. So far, only prototypes are available, so can't comment much.

Spot, you should have come to Sydney earlier for SMPTE, Sony had two A1s on the stand, look pretty good on the Luma monitors.

yeah, but the ones you saw there are just prototypes/preproductions...which are great. I wrote the HDV book with a proto Z1, but I want the real thing. :-) They had a proto A1 at DV Expo this week too.

How much longer before the mythical A1 shows up. The HC1 is already dropping in pirce. Saw it for $1569 yesterday.

"How much longer before the mythical A1 shows up. The HC1 is already dropping in pirce. Saw it for $1569 yesterday."

Where please? Abes of Maine has it for $1758. The faster the price falls the happier ill be.

"I really don't need HDV . . ." We all need to be rethinking that premise. I've been working the transition since NAB and a new Z1 and AMD dual core. Your customers are going to come asking for HD before you can say, "SD is good enough for you!" It ain't easy, it ain't even cheap, but the bandwagon is coming your way soon enough. Just my little rant on a beautiful afternoon in the Rockies. BTW, my customers like the idea of just shooting their weddings et al and archiving with an EDL. Easy enough to downsample to a superior SD image for now.

Darryl

Patrick (and others)
you might find this article on choosing an HD camcorder to be of use in making considerations. It's still not a live story yet, but finished enough that you can read it.

Much thanks Spot. Looking over it now.