The perfect family camcorder (Sony Handycam DCR-HC45E)

Member Name: Wood-Myster

Product:	Sony Handycam DCR-HC45E
Date:	04/06/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Really quick to charge and produces good quality video

Disadvantages: The tapes and compuet software cost an awful lot

The Sony Handycam DCR-HC45 is a really good, small handheld video camera that produces some really good video. The camera comes packed with loads of fantastic features, however be warned if you plan to take a lot of video or upload to you computer you goto have to spend a lot of extra cash.

The camera is really quick, from being turned on till being able to record video only takes a couple of second. The flip out screen allows you to take video of exactly what you want to, however it does drain the battery life a bit. The zoom is really easy to use, either you can use the controls on the flip out screen or you can use the toggle like feature.

The battery lasts for a long time as long as you keep the flip out screen in and dont flim, however it still does pretty well if your filming with the screen out.

The flip out screen is a touch screen that allows you to change any number of settings or activate the digital zoom. there is also an inbuilt editing feature, however i have been unable to master this.

Each tape can hold around 1 hours worth of video and are really easy to put in. However just three tapes costs around £10, and its likely you want several more than just three hours worth of video.

If you want to be able to upload and then edit on the computer you will need to buy a piece of hardware, we brought this with Pinaccle, for around £60. Whilst expensive and very resctrictive, unless you buy all the add ons. However i have been able to make some good short films

Summary: This is a good camcoder with a large range of features

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