New Sony HD camcorders stop the shakes

Stephen Withers
Friday, 27 February 2009 01:07

Opinion and Analysis

I haven't had the chance to try this for myself, but I'd imagine that applying the software image stabilisation in a program like iMovie '09 could give the impression of a tripod-mounted camera. (That raises the question of how well the new Handycams work with iMovie, but I have no information or experience to pass on.)

Another feature of Sony's new range is built-in GPS.

My initial reaction was that this was a bit of a gimmick. But when you learn that one of the cameras can hold over 90 hours of footage, you realise that you'll need a way of finding the clip you want to view that doesn't rely on date and time.

Instead, using the touch screen you can pan and zoom a map to the location you want to revisit, and virtual pins represent the clips. Neat or what?

And the GPS information is preserved when you transfer the footage to a computer using Sony's Picture Motion Browser software for Windows.

If I was in the market for a $A2000-$A2700 camcorder, I'd certainly take a closer look at Sony's latest models before making a decision.

The HDR-XR200V ($A1999) incorporates a 4MP still camera and has a 120G hard drive, the HDR-XR500V ($A2499) boosts that to 12MP and 120G, and HDR-XR520V ($A2699) tops out the range with a 240G drive. All three models are due to ship in March.