Customer Reviews

Sony DCR-DVD505 4MP DVD Handycam Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I just bought this today and had 5 minutes to learn how to use it for my daughter's Chorus concert. It is unbelievable! It is very easy to use, and takes great video even with the wierd dark amature lighting of a school concert. This is my first digital camcorder. My old VHS-C was just too bulky that I tended not to take it anywhere or use it. This is very small, and there is no hassle with tapes. Simply pop in a mini DVD and you are done! The picture quality is incredible. My old camera would have never been able to capture the video in low light like this camera. I was having a tough time deciding between this and the Sony 405. With about a $200 price difference, all forums, literature etc. said the only difference between the two was the 505 has a better still camera built in (which I didn't care about). THIS IS NOT TRUE. The bigger 3.5 Vs. 2.7 LCD screen makes all the difference in the world. Since that's what you are looking at 99% of the time while you are shooting, that would have been enough for me to by the 505. Also, this camera comes with software which allows you to transfer your old videos on to DVD's. The only thing I did not realize about this camera before I bought it that I do not like is the fact that you cannot adjust the recording time of SHQ, HQ and Low Quality to allow for more time on the DVD when you are recording it. Sony basically has an optimizer or something like that to automatically adjust time for the best picture quality. I got 27 minutes on the DVD. An extra 2 minutes would have allowed me to tape the whole program. 30 minutes goes awfully fast when recording because this camera is so easy to use. I can see I'm going to pay a fortune for disks. However, overall, I would not consider another camera. I can't wait to take my time and really learn how to use this baby.

This camcorder does capture good shots. But the main drawback is that it records to DVD. Initially its nice and easy to capture video and watch it on DVD instantly. It gives you instant gratification. But after capturing 4 or 5 hours of video, you will notice that your videos aren't so great as you expect it to be. Its not the fault with your camcorder. Its because all of us shoot extra footage, unwanted scenes, shakes, etc which we want to edit. You may want to add a title or two, add transitions, add backgroud music, combine your photos with the video, etc. Basically you may want to edit your footage. Its here when you find the major drawback of this camcorder. The DVD that you used to capture is non-editable. Therefore you need to download it to your computer and use a program like Pinnacle 9.0 to edit it. But the original picture quality is so bad that you won't have sufficient bandwidth to edit the video. As you know, DVD videos are compressed in MPEG2 format. This is a lossy compression that is good enough to watch the video on TV but not good enough to edit. When you edit these videos, add some transitions or special effects, increase/decrease brigthness or noise, etc, the newly edited video loses further clarity and thus makes your video look ugly and pixelated.

In summary please don't buy this camcorder if you are serious about your videos and would like to edit them. But if you are not bothered about editing and want to watch your "RAW" unedited footage forever, then go for it.

That said, if you still think you want to go for this camcorder, please read the review on its other features:

Feature new to this camcorder: Superb slow motion. You can shoot in 240 frames per second and play back at regular speed thus achieving superb slow motion effects. This is one feature that you will fall in love with.

Features that are not new:
1. Super NightShot Infrared System: Not a useful feature. Its amazining to initially see how this camcorder is able to "see" using infrared light. But the moment you shoot your wife or kid using infrared light, you never want to shoot again as they will appear like devils when shot using this infrared light. Remember infrared footage appears in black-and-white and not color. And the subject's eyes really look like devil.

2. 2.7-inch wide SwivelScreen LCD display with touch panel capabilities: Good feature if you always want to shoot in widescreen. In fact I would suggest you to shoot in widescreen only as all future TVs and current LCD/Plasma TVs are widescreen. You can future proof your video by shooting widescreen

3. Digital still photos: Please don't rely on this feature. The best photos from this camcorder as as good as the worst photos from any popular digital camera. Technology has still not matured to the point where a camcorder can shoot as good as a digital camera and vice versa.

4. 10x optical/120x digital zoom: Optical zoom is good enough. Any more zoom requires the use of a tripod. You can manage without a tripod upto 10X only. Hence its good enough. Don't use the digital zoom feature. Turn it off. As mentioned above, MPEG2 compression already makes the video bad in quality. The digital zoom further makes it worst.

5. Progressive shutter system: Sony tries to mislead you into thinking that the camcorder is progressive. Not its not. Video is still interlaced only. Only digital photos are progressive which obviously they must be. Its no big deal. Forget about this feature.

6. Professional-quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* lens: Yes its good. The image quality is truly great till it gets compressed into MPEG2 format for storing onto DVD.

7. Super SteadyShot picture stabilization system: Good enough to avoid small vibrations caused when going on a ship for example. But not good enough for the shakes encountered when walking with the camcorder. Don't expect to get great footage in such conditions. For great footage, you must still rely on a steady hand or a tripod.

8. Dolby Digital 5.1-channel recording: Not a big deal. If you have a 5.1 home theatre, you may get some good results. But if you are watching your video on ordinary TV, you will actually lose some audio as your DVD player downsizes the 5.1 audio into 2 channel audio. All professional Hollywood DVDs actually have at least two seperate audio information. One for 5.1 systems and one for ordinary stereo. The DVD produced by this camcorder has only one track for 5.1. So if you watch on an ordinary Tv, you may lose some audio information. I would suggest not to rely on this feature and instead shoot in stereo only as its more than enough for everyday regular home videos.

9. On-screen zoom and record buttons: Not an useful feature. The camcorder tends to shake more when you use these zoom buttons on the LCD because the LCD is always projecting outside when shooting video. Hence you shake the camcorder more when you touch the LCD than when you touch the camcorder's body.

10. USB 2.0 interface: NOt a useful feature. Its easier to remove the DVD and place it on your DVD ROM drive on your computer, than to connect the camcorder using USB cables. The USB interface is useful if you want to burn DVDs using the camcorder's DVD burning feature. But remember, this camcorder can burn only miniature sized DVDs and not the regular DVDs. Moreover its cheaper and more convenient to use the computer's internal DVD writer or external DVD writer than to use this camcorder as a DVD burner. You don't want to decrease the life of the camcorder's DVD writer as the camcorder is far expensive than an ordinary DVD burner.

11. One-touch wide-angle shooting: Useless feature. You tend to always shoot in wideangle or letterbox. Who would want to switch constantly between these modes? Also as suggested earlier, better to shoot in wideangle only and future proof your videos.

12. Picture Package software: Very useless software. The free Picasa software from Google is far better in organizning your videos and pictures than the software that comes with this camera. Forget about this software.

13. DVD-R/RW and +RW Compatible: The camcorder is somewhat slow and non-responsive when you use DVDRW. This may be because DVDRW always have slower burn speeds compared to DVDR. So this is not a very useful feature unless you are planning to shoot still photos only. The slow speed problem occurs when shooting video only.

14. Active interface shoe: You can use this to connect external flash or mic. Not a very useful feature as any external device spoils the compactness of this camera.

15. InfoLithium battery with AccuPower meter system: Great battery life. I could shoot for upto 1 hour 20 minutes with one battery. Remember we always don't shoot continously in everyday life. We turn the camcorder on and off repeatedly when shooting. This battery last for 1 hour 20 minutes during normal shooting as explained above. If you shoot continously you may get longer battery life.

Overall summary. Buy this camcorder only if you are not serious about editing the videos. Its a good buy for point-and-shoot-and-view viewing pleasure.

This is an outstanding camera. Very easy to use and pretty good battery life. I picked up the Sony accessory kit at the same time and even the "back up" battery in the kit lasts 90 minutes on a full charge. This camera has all the best available features (night shot, good image stabilization, and functional touch-screen menus, to name a few). The video quality in LP mode is not very good, so don't expect to get more than 30 minutes of shooting out of a miniDVD. However, the SP mode provides really good quality, so you don't have to worry about cutting your time down to 20 minutes (which is the time you get out of one DVD in the highest quality mode).

What I'd warn potential buyers about has to do with DVD Camcorders in general, rather than any problem with the camera. As someone who was not intimately familiar with the wide variety of camcorders (and who was tired of my Panasonic DV camcorder not recording properly), I considered the MiniDVD option to be ideal. However, I learned two things after finishing my first DVD.

1. You need special software (DVD video editing software or DVD copy software or both) to do anything other than copy from one miniDVD to another miniDVD. Additionally, software like Roxio's MyDVD doesn't work well with the VOB file format used by the camcorder. All video on the miniDVD is saved into a single file. This means that video editors will have to know how (and have the patience) to trim down the video to make different chapters. The chapters show up on the finalized DVD from the camera, but DVD copy software won't reproduce the menu for you, either.

2. If you want to play back your videos on something other than the camcorder, make sure your DVD player is relatively new. Ours was 6 years old and didn't recognize the DVD-R as a valid disk. Now that I know, this seems pretty logical, but when I popped my first disk into my player, expecting to see my daughters playing, I was sorely disappointed to find that the player wouldn't do anything with the disk. However, there are some fairly inexpensive players out there now that recognize all DVD formats, so this isn't a huge problem. It's just something you need to be aware of.

In all, the DVD505 is a great camera. Those seriously interested in DVD editing, unless you really know what you're doing, you may want to consider sticking with DV tapes for awhile.

The camera itself is great. I had some question about grainy picture in low light. I called SONY Service and they explained how to adjust the camera for low light filming without using the "green" Super Night Shot. A small adjustment using the menu system and I was back in business with great low light pictures.

I have no problems with the camera. The software is not as good as it could be but allows you to do some editing and copy the DVD for distribution. If you want to do extensive editing, you can use any of the DVD authoring programs with the video from this camera.

I am looking forward to many years of quality pictures.

After reviewing DVD Camcorders, between owner reviews and professional reviews I have decided that the DVD505 camcorder is the best unit out there. Apparently PC Magazine agrees, as they have given the DVD505 its coveted Editor's choice award.

They said "The DVD505 is a pricey camcorder that could have better digital-still-image features. Nonetheless, its exceptional touch screen LCD, fine video quality, and ease-of-use features make it a shoo-in as our Editors' Choice for a DVD camcorder."

Pros from PC Magazine: Great video quality. Very good sound. Excellent 3.5-inch-wide touch panel. Articulating LCD. Pivoting viewfinder.

The miniDVD format for camcorders is becoming increasingly popular with each passing year for one main reason: convenience. Consumers can record video, then play it back on the same 8cm DVD disc, right on their DVD player.

The 3.5-inch LCD touch screen (which also articulates) is larger than most camcorders. The quality of the LCD is excellent (high resolution).

PC magazine also liked its low light performance.
"The Sony DVD505 excelled in Nightshot mode. Other camcorders provide this feature, but end up with streaky, almost surreal footage. That's cool if you want to create an avant-garde dream sequence, but not for capturing details. The DVD505 does an exquisite job of filming in low light or at night. The digital or electronic image stabilization also worked pretty well, even in low light."

PC Mag Video Quality: "tests revealed video footage that nears the quality of miniDV camcorders. My "talking head" footage had just the right amount of color saturation and contrast. I was definitely impressed with the skin tones. I also found the audio was quite good; it stood out from the other camcorders I tested. There were no color casts or artifacts in the video. And in low light, the camcorder performed quite well, enabling me to see details in shadow areas."

If you plan to use the camcorder to strictly make DVDs without having to use a computer for editing, this one is for you. Media costs might add up though.

Things I hated about this camcorder ...
(1) Multi second message every time you start the camcorder "Sony Disc Recommended" ... I could understand if this message was to come up 1st time after a non-sony DVD disc was loaded. You might start the camcorder to capture a unique moment and ... Sony will want you to know that you should use discs made by them so that they can make more money.

(2) If you plan to use a DVD RW disc to make videos and move contents to a computer to burn regular DVDs, you will need to buy your own software for editing. Software that comes with the camcorder will allow you to stream video files to the computer. ALSO last few clips had unreliable audio transfer.

(3) If you are planning to use this camcorder with the A/V input to stream your older videos to a computer to burn DVDs, you will have to burn miniDVDs on the camcorder then move contents of the miniDVD to the computer. This camcorder will not allow you to connect a Hi8 camcorder on A/V IN and USB/Firewire OUT to the computer directly like DV camcorders.

(4)Only 20-30 minutes of good quality recording on a disc. I knew this while buying the camcorder....because of other problems this issue got exasperated.

I have returned the camcorder with a 10% restocking fee, yet I feel happy.

I purchased mine at best buy and paid over 200.00 more for mine.
I absolutely love this camera it's easy to use and the pictures and video are just beautiful! Best part there is no delay in the shutter it will stop action not blur or miss it. It is so much easier having an all in one -it's so small. I am really impressed. I have had just a point and shoot 2mp for years it was time to update I was little nervous over the price but it is cheaper than buying 2 seperate cameras which was what i was looking at.
I can say it was worth the money when i can finally get some wicked good portrait quality pictures.
i can't wait to take it on vacation.

If your looking for a 2 in one this is the ticket.

The "Easycam" makes this camcorder easy. Just turn it on and record. So far the only negatives I find is that the zoom button is too close to where the fingers lie and occasionally it will be pushed without me knowing, so that when I turn the camera to record, it is blurry and I have to stop, erase and then go back to record. By that time, I may have missed something I wanted to record. The other negative would be the slow time it takes to get to recording. Once you turn it on, you have to wait for it to download for recording. Many times I missed the quick things I wanted recorded. It can be irksome to be recording, run out of time and have to replace with a new DVD. The DVD has to be formatted which means you have to place the camera in a steady place with no vibrations. The DVD is 30 minutes long, so this can happen pretty often. Hard when you're on a tour or walking around.

The software is pretty useless. Also, Nero 6 software was suppose to have been included in the box and it was not.

Overall, it is a great camcorder and compact enough to put in a carry-on and very easy to carry around.

This camera was so great that I ended up buying another one as a gift. It's a all in one. There are tons of attachments and it's great that I can have a video and digital camera all in one. If I run out of disks, I can always through the pictures or video on my memory chip. Amazon has the lowest price on it by far.

The 505 is so easy to use. I like the special dual still shot and video capability (shooting a still photo while shooting video simultaneously). It is great to be able to take quality photos and video on one machine. The touch sensitive screen is nice too. The only hassle is having to switch DVD's during a longer session such as a class. But, Great job Sony!