OT Sony HDR-SR12

brianw wrote on 7/11/2008, 11:40 PM

Spent a bit of time selecting a new cam for son in law. Decided on the HDR-SR12 but when he went to buy find there is no firewire connection. Now, here's the hard part, he declares that since he uses Apple Mac for editing he MUST have firewire. Now I know this is not a Mac forum but was wondering if this lack of firewire is an issue with other platforms and programmes.
Is the HDR-SR12 a good choice anyway??
TIA Brian

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 7/12/2008, 12:13 AM

The transfer of video via Firewire has traditionally been done in real-time from tape. The HDR-SR12 uses a USB v2.0 interface to transfer files from the camera to the computer's hard drive. The camcorder should appear as drive just like any other external hard drive and you copy files from it. (Part of the advantage of doing it this way is that file transfers can be done much faster than real-time.) Most (if not all) of the newer Macs have USB v2.0 ports so, as long as you can transfer the files from the camcorder to the computer and the editing program has the appropriate codecs to decode the files, it should work fine.

However, the Sony specifications for this camcorder only list Windows operating systems as being supported.

farss wrote on 7/12/2008, 12:18 AM

As the SR12 records to a hard disk you don't "capture" the video, you transfer it as a file so no need for firewire at all.
Keep in mind that this camera is recording to AVCHD which is a bear to edit, you should check if / how well it can be edited on a Mac.

I'd do a comparison between the camera and the HC7/9 lineup. The SR12 has too many pixels for my liking, all else being equal less pixels is better.
For anyone seriously interested in video these little palmcorders with little to no manual image or audio controls are frustrating. Even those that do have some degree of control do so though the menu which isn't all that practical really. But this all depends on what the camera is for, my comments maybe way off.

Bob.

newhope wrote on 7/15/2008, 6:52 AM

Actually the Mac handles AVCHD file transfers surpirsingly much easier than Vegas does.

I run Vegas and Final Cut Pro but also have iMovie HD (not that I'd seriously use it) As long as you have the latest version of iMove HD from the iLife08 package it will import AVCHD files directly.

Final Cut Pro 6 also imports via the Log and Transfer function. And, as farss wrote, there's no need for firewire.

One thing that is disconcerting in Final Cut Pro is the AVCHD codec gets converted to Apple ProRes 422 (or if selected the older Apple Intermediate) Codec on import.

This causes the files size to ballon out by a factor of around 10:1. Hence a file that may have been around 600Meg on the hard disk of the Sony camera in AVCHD now ends up around 6Gb when transfered onto the Mac. Though the Apple ProRes codec is great to edit I can't give a comparison to editing AVCHD on a PC.

I haven't tried it successfully in Vegas as the intermediate program I am forced to use to get the files off the camera, mine is a Panasonic HDC-HS9 which is also AVCHD, and onto the computer really sucks.

Besides at the moment the Panasonic is just being used for home movies and I'm still on SD DVCAM for my corporate work and trying to convince myself to outlay the $$$ for the XDCAM EX1.

Newhope