Sony DCR-PC1000 MiniDV Handycam Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom

I love this camera! I used this camera for a year now and in my opinion this is the best Sony camera for family use. It fits easily in a pocket, I just carry it in a ziplock bag to avoid getting it dirty. I carry this camera with me whenever I can, just to document bits of daily family life. I have other Sony cameras, but due to their size I always choose this one. The quality is excellent in good light condition, very good to document family moments. I also like the provided Handycam Station, I keep it on a table, put camera back when I'm home and thanks to this almost never forget to load batteries. I really can't complain about anything. Also, the photos quality are reasonable quality.

This camera achieves its goal as a sleek, simple dual function (still/movie) camera with moderate access to advanced functions. It is easy to use, small and lightweight, and has a very high coolness quotient. It has an interesting form factor, which I haven't found difficult to use, although the zoom toggle is sometimes difficult to reach because it's placed too high when you're holding the camera low in front of your body. The video is sharp and clear, and the audio is surprisingly good considering the built-in mic is placed on the top of the camera body. I do wish it had even the smallest of lights to assist with low-light conditions, because the video quality can be average in dim light. I think Sony should either have put a standard accessory shoe on the camera, or they should offer more options in terms of accessories, which are limited to a couple of mics and a light/flash or two. For example, a combination video light/flash and quality stereo or surround mic would be fantastic. Also, there is no external microphone input or headphone monitor jack, both of which should be standard on a camera in this price range. The battery life is limited. At full charge it reads 80 minutes. There is a larger battery available, but even that wont hold up to sustained use of zoom and flash. I suspect Sony chose an enclosed battery compartment to keep the camera sleek, but they should get working on a more potent option.

One of the best features of this camera is that it works quite well as a still camera! I use it interchangeably with my dedicated still for anything that will print 4x6 or smaller. Camcorders are typically regarded as glorified cell phones in terms of their still functionality, but this one breaks the mold. While it's not able to capture the same level of detail and color balance, it IS good enough for small prints and my wife's scrapbooking projects.

As for the computer interface, it's very good over USB, and I'm sure over firewire as well. Connecting the camera couldn't be simpler. It auto-detects the usb connect mode, and is easy to switch from DV capture to DV pass-through or memory stick acces. It can even stream video over USB, though I doubt I'll ever use a $1000 webcam. As slick as the hardware is, Sony's software has a long way to go before it is mature. The video capture utility could be great, but they need a usability designer to sort the thing out. For example, it stops every so often at a non-configurable and arbitrary "time limit", making it impossible to simply punch "capture" and walk away from the camera, returning to a single, complete AVI file. I tried some freeware, but it choked on the audio, so I now use Windows Movie Maker. It's a simple solution that can both capture and edit, and it's the software Sony should have produced. They could improve upon it by enabling the ability to install video codecs other than WMA, like DIVX or XVID, or even just plain old MPEG1/2! But it works great for raw AVI capture and edits. I'll use some other tools to convert the video and burn the DVDs.

My overall review of this camera remains 5 stars becuase of:
1) size
2) usability (others have complained, I find it quite good)
3) versatility (camcorder, camera, camcorder - not too bad!)
4) extremely good video quality (in bright light)
5) cool factor

BUT, Sony needs to put out a more powerful battery option, and expand on the shoe accessories. Plus, they need to improve the software profoundly on the next go-around, and they need to add a damn headphone and external mic jack to this thing. Finally, it WOULD be nice to have a more versatile set of manual controls and a simpler mechanical interface to access them (ie a nice control ring), and it would be nice to add a firewire/usb port on the camera to enable direct DV streaming to an external hard disk.

Sweet camera overall, with a few acceptable quibbles...

I've only had my pc1000 for a week and it seems to be a great camera. The camera form factor, user controls, and picture/audio quality are all better than I expected.

The one area where it missed the mark was that Sony doesn't adequately emphasize that Mac users need an additional 4-pin to 6-pin IEEE (Firewire/i.Link) cable. This is not included and runs around $25.

From the product specs, I misunderstood that a Mac with USB 2.0 would work with the supplied USB cable. USB will ONLY transfer Memory Stick data - not MiniDV data, which is where you'll record most of your video. The only place I found this documented was in the "Troubleshooting" section of the manual. In other words, Sony considers their poor OS support to be a user problem.... Feh.

Once you get a 4-pin to 6-pin Firewire cable, however, iMovie effortlessly imports your video. Don't bother with the included Sony software.

Otherwise, the pc1000 rocks.

Iam from Costa Rica, this camera is very expensive I do not recommend you to buy, i t has no night shot or super night shot, the built in Flash has power for close pictures, the picture quality is just aceptable in sun ligth but indoors is very bad, i recommend you to buy the DCR-PC105 or similar from sony, it cost less and is almost the same video quality but this one has more features, the DCR-PC1000 has two modes of picture quality, i do not recommend this device.

As a Handy-cam, it works fine. It has an "idiot" mode button that allows simple point and shoot operation. So, if you're on vacation and shooting outdoors, you're set with the PC1000. It's fine. The resolution and quality are superb.

Anything beyond those lower expectations, however, forget it. Operating the camera in any type of manual mode is a cumbersome method in sub-menu frustration. Low light performance is atrocious and there's NO WAY to get quality audio into the camera.

None.

You can buy an after market cam-mounted stereo mic from Sony, but it's still doesn't provide good fidelity; mainly because there's no way to get the mic close to the subject --save for moving the camera itself. Not an option if image composition is important to you. More mind-boggling is the decision to leave off any kind of audio monitoring whatsoever. Headphones? Nope, no headphone jack. Not only does it capture sub-par audio, it doesn't allow you any ability to monitor possible flaws in audio capture.

Case in point: I bought the external "hot shoe" mic from sony. Well, if has an 'off' toggle switch on it that's hard to discern, thus I recorded a 20 minute interview with the lousy default cam mic and had no way of realizing my dilemma 'til I play-backed the tape in another machine.

Anyway, the cam makes a nice image in good light, no question, so it's good for video novices that just want simple home movies. Don't expect anything else out of it though.