This camera can really be summed up in a few words. It is an 808 #11 camera with AV-Out. Unless you need AV-out you are probably better off getting the #16 camera instead.
I am not going to link to any sellers of this camera. If you do want to buy one…you'll find it on eBay where you will most likely be importing it from China. If you are unable to find it using the eBay search function then I'd recommend also avoiding the camera as perhaps technology isn't your forte.
When I pulled this mini camera out of its box, I thought that it would make for a really interesting review. It records in 720p, has a 350 min battery life, looks fun but can perform a real function as a car DVR. Its very well put together, feels like solid steel and has a useful screen and lots of buttons that make it simple to use. So what could possibly go wrong........
It might not look like much, but believe it or not, I've searched everywhere I know on the internet for years for a remote that works like this.....and it only costs £10.
For those people who are expecting camera reviews...I do actually have a couple of new cameras in to review....but I need to take them outside to shoot some test footage and the weather is so atrocious at the moment that I've had to delay these reviews for a while.
I've just been away on holiday for a fortnight and upon my return I picked up hundreds of emails and saw a few impatient comments in there, one chap in particular vexed me after he posted that he was unsubscribing from my youtube feed because I hadn't posted any videos in a while. My last video was three weeks earlier. I know that this is just one fool, and I'm better off without subscribers of this caliber, but stuff like this really gets me down sometimes. If anyone else is similarly frustrated with my lack of videos please let me know and I will refund you in full the cost of your youtube subscription to my feed for the three week period in question. Actually, what the heck, I'll refund double.
Anyway, now that has been said, for all the normal people I should have some interesting stuff coming along soon, but it requires some patience. I'm not a team of hipsters based in San Francisco doing this full time, I'm just one middle aged chap with a camcorder and a few spare hours a week. I'd imagine that most people could find something else on the internet to occupy their time until my next video is ready. Many thanks for reading and understanding.
When I was researching this camera, deciding whether it was worth buying, I found it impossible to find any raw unconverted sample clips that had been produced by this camera. There were a few videos on youtube, but as we all know, these aren't an accurate representation of the true video quality.
Everything I did manage to view though looked absolutely terrible. Washed out, shakey and blurry. Well it turns out that this was in fact an accurate representation of this camera's capabilities after all. There are a few reasons as to why this is the case. First off, the 3D video is 1080p AVC MP4 Half SBS, which means that each eye gets allocated half of the 1080p frame - this results in softer video than normal 2D 1080p. This would be forgivable, if it wasn't for the camera's achilles heel.
This camera deactivates image stabilisation when it is recording in 3D mode. A camera this small relies heavily upon image stabilisation to prevent the footage degenerating into a shaky mess. This is probably even more important when recording in 3D mode. The final problem with this camera is that its lenses are far too close together to capture a proper sense of depth. I really don't know what Sony was thinking here, but the effects of having the lenses next to each other like this, is that anything more than a few feet in front of the camera ends up on the same visual plane. Untimately it becomes very difficult to spot that the 3D footage is actually 3D. It just ends up looking odd. The 3D effect produced by this camera is to 3D what virtual surround is to Dolby 7.1. You can tell something different is supposed to be happening, but you can't quite put your finger on what it is.
So in effect we have a 3D camera that takes soft, shaky, flat 3D video. I can see why Sony discountinued this one very quicky and liquidated all existing stocks through heavy discounting. I just can't understand why they went ahead and brought it out in the first place. However if you want a pocket camera that records reasonable 1080p video then this isn't a bad camera. Just make sure you keep the 3D mode switched off at all times.
You may have noticed from file dates in the video that a lot of the work on this 'review' was done in March 2012. I sold the camera on ebay and moved on to other things. I've only just managed to return to this and finish it off over this bank holiday weekend. This explains why I didn't go as indepth as normal on this review, and it is why I will find it difficult to answer any questions about this camera.
The main reason I decided to go back and finish this video is so that there is a bit of context to the sample clips that I wanted people to have the opportunity to download and see for themselves. One other reason is that I could finally delete the video files off my laptop to free up some space.
Below is a link to the sample clips. All of these are straight from the camera and uploaded to Mediafire. All video clips are unedited and in AVC MP4 format. The 3D video is SBS 1080p. The 3D pictures are in JPG+MPO format. You will need playback and display equipment capable of showing these file formats.
Just a quick video demonstrating a camera case for my Sony HX100V. I was expecting to have the Sony HDR-GW55VE by now...but every time I look at Amazon the release date for this camera has moved further into the future. I was intending to take the pocket sized GW55VE on holiday this year, but since it's not arrived, I bought a case for my Studio camera, the HX100V, instead so I can take that on my travels. I wanted the smallest case possible, and this one comes with the added benefit of a hand strap which makes the HX100V feel more like a camcorder. I think this will be a good enough compromise for my trip. I still prefer to travel with something a bit more pocket sized, but at £38, this one is definitely a little friendlier on the pocket than the £500+ I was intending to spend on the new camera.
Sunday, July 1, 2012 at 9:27AM