Sony DCR-SR45 30GB Hard Drive Handycam

We have an aging Sony Hi 8mm and tired of buying tapes. Two friends have the Sony DCR SR42 that this model replaces. Sony improved on a great product! It is easy to operate, has great sound and quality video recording, light weight, and priced right. Not great for taking still photos, but then it is sold as a camcorder not a still picture camera. If you are looking for a good camera for vacations and catching family moments then this is a perfect camera. If you are looking for a professional quality camera, then drop $2000 and buy one.

bought this cam for the arrival of our little boy. everything seems pretty good, the still camera is not very good - quality wise, but it's not a still cam, it's a video cam. we've had it just over a month and all seems well so far.

This is a good Camera for the price, but I think you should find a better one for additional $70-100. It's compact, has a very nice zoom and HD capacity, accepts MS cards and has a useful touch screen that allows you to access all functions. But it has a very limited CCD, that doesn't allow you to have very high resolution recordings. The movies look nice in the small 2.7 screen, but it will be not so good for presenting in bigger screens, like a 32" LCD or higher. If you like Sony, I recommend you to look for DCR-SR65 or better.

Its worth your money..i'm satisfied with the product though the picture is little grainy but its easy to handle...but if you watch the movie on the t.v. screan, its good!the sound quality is perfect! what else can you get in such a low price?....its cool!!

I've had this camera for the first few weeks and I am still in the process of learning how to use it. However there are a few things I can comment on. First, it is correct that the absence of optical vewfinder is a real problem with sunlit bright scenes: you just cannot see what you are filming, the LCD is not strong enough to fight the glare from the sun, so you are left blind. The software that comes with the camera is bizarre, in the sense that it describes various operations but without any explanations as to what they really are or why it is good to have them, or what it does in the end. For example, following the downloading of the images into one's computer, the software goes through "analyzing" the videos. I still do not know what that does and why this is good to do. (When I download the images via MS, there is no such requirements, and I can still use the images, play the videos, make them part of Premier Elements clips, etc.) Plus the extra files (.modd and .moff) that are... Read more