please give me insight , sony DCR-SR85

ozzborn wrote on 10/24/2008, 9:34 PM

Hi, I have been using acid since 2.0 (cant wait for 7) now i am getting into video.

I want to put video to our music.

i have edited 3 videos with vegas 5 and i am going to buy a camera.

I am looking at the sony DCR-SR85, it seems right for my budget, seems like the right features.

If i see good promise over the next 5 video projects, i will step up to an hd model or maybe lower version cannon XL1 (i dont know the model # for the one with out multiple lenses), but right now , i am not ready to play at that level.

for 600.00 with tri-pod and wide angle lense, the sony DCR-SR85,seems like a good invesment.

what i am looking for in a camera is easily able to transfer video into software, image quality, and a couple of lenses.

please give me insight,thanx in advance.

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/25/2008, 8:29 AM

> the sony DCR-SR85,seems like a good invesment.

Not for a video editor it isn't. The reviews I've read on that camera say it's over priced for what it delivers. It doesn't even have optical image stabilization. But the worst part is that it shoots DVD quality MPEG2 which is NOT something you want to edit and re-render as it will fall apart quickly. IMHO this is not a camera for someone who wants to edit their videos (i.e., avoid SD MPEG2 lie the plague). This is basically a "shoot-n-view" soccer mom camera.

Personally, for a 200 bucks more I would start with HD. (Why even mess with SD at this point?) You could get a Sony HDR-CX12 for $750 and record direct to memory sticks.

If you cannot afford something like the CX12 and want to start with a lower cost SD camera, get yourself a miniDV camcorder. Like I said, avoid SD MPEG2 cameras like the plauge. They are not for video editing.

~jr

tcbetka wrote on 10/25/2008, 12:26 PM

I have to agree with JR here, 100%...

Before buying a Sony SR11 HD camera, we bought an SR45--which is basically the same camera as the SR85, but with a smaller hard drive. It's only 30GB. But we quickly found out that SD wasn't nearly as pleasing to the eye as we wanted, or had envisioned when we decided to get involved in videography. So in essence it cost us about $375 to figure that out. The camera itself (the SR45) is a great unit--easy to use, easy to download footage, just a simply camera. But we never use ours anymore, because we just the SR11. In fact we liked SD so much, we went out an bought a used FX1 prosumer camera in like-new condition!

The point is (as JR so ably pointed out) that you'd likely be longing for an HD camera after using the SD one...so why not just buy an HD unit to start with? On the other hand, if you know nothing about editing video (everyone has to start somewhere), then the SD camera would get you going cheaper. But again, I'm pretty confident that virtually everyone who has used both will tell you exactly what JR did.

But hey, if you really want an SD camera to start off with...email me. The SR45 we have is like-new, literally being used only 5-6 times. Once we saw HD, that was it. I suspect it might just be the same for you as well; so I think you owe it to yourself to at least check it out anyway, before buying SD.

TB

ozzborn wrote on 10/28/2008, 2:22 AM

thanks for your responses.

if not the sr45 ,how does the canon HG 10 measure up than.

i am reading off the forums that people are having problems with getting AVCHD to work good, this is a concearn aswell,

my computer system is a pentium dual core 3.2 with 2 gigs of ram, 2 uad cards(not important for video).

thanx in advance,

tcbetka wrote on 10/28/2008, 6:54 AM

Well, I think your machine would do fine with AVCHD. All of us with quad core machines have trouble...it isn't like ours are handling AVCHD without difficulty. But there are a couple options for you: GearShift and UpShift. Check out each of these on the VASST website.

While I have heard that GearShift is a spectacular product for folks with slightly older PCs, I have never tried it myself. But I have seen many comments to that effect, so I wouldn't be afraid to try it. I have even seen folks say they are editing proxy files (created with GearShift) with older laptops; which is amazing to me. As for UpShift, the current release isn't quite there yet--but it's getting very close. The New Blue FX people have developed a private beta that (at least) one of the forum members is testing--and he has told me that it is great. So that's going to be a very viable option to allow conversion of AVCHD files to HDV format, which is easier to process.

But the other thing to consider if you want to avoid AVCHD, is simply buying an HV20 or HV30 camera from Canon. Those cameras were recommended VERY highly when I bought the Sony SR11, and I would have bought one of them if I'd wanted the miniDV media. But I wanted a hard drive, and unless I was going to buy a JVC camera, that meant I had to settle for AVCHD. So I bought the SR11 and use UpShift, and am waiting for the new version to be released.

All of what I've just said depends on whether or not your machine can process HDV files as well, of course. But both GearShift and UpShift allow file conversion to lower bitrates, and thus advocate the use of "proxy" files to make editing easier on the timeline. Then you just substitute the larger bitrate files back into the project at the end, when you are ready to render. And the other thing to remember is that the NLE developers are busily working on making their products more efficient at processing AVCHD as well as HDV--so you may find that AVCHD will be a non-issue sooner than you think. Most people might be skeptical of that, but Vegas is getting better at handling it; especially if you can install a 64-bit version of Vista on an empty hard drive in your machine. My Vista 64 OS running Vegas 8.1 handles AVCHD much better than version 8c does. Just some things for you to think about.

I wouldn't be afraid of AVCHD; nor would I be afraid of the Canon cameras either. In fact, 6 or 7 of the top 10 camcorders rated by camcorderinfo.com are all Canons. That should tell you something.

TB