Reviews |
Quick Review Camcorders : Sony DCR-HC40
by Matt CullerPublished on November 03, 2004
Although the DCR-HC40, as the top of this year's HC line by
Sony, includes an improvement in CCD size and still capabilities from its fellow
camcorders, its performance is remarkably similar to the DCR-HC30, which nearly
serves to render invalid any advances made by the upgrades. These include a big
CCD, at 1/5 inch and 1.07 gross Megapixels, and better still capability,
recording to Multimedia card at 1152 x 864. You'll also find a hot accessory
shoe and a better 16:9 mode.
The DCR-HC40 has 1/5 inch CCD with 690K effective pixels and 1.07 Gross megapixels. It has an middling to poor 10x optical zoom (120x digital), and a focal length of 3.2 - 32mm. In a controlled environment of 3000 lux, which is the equivalent of bright light, colors are realistic and full. The spectrum of greens and reddish-violets lean towards blue, a common saturation effect on Sony consumer camcorders. The video performance on the DCR-HC40 is marginally better than the DCR-HC30, but the difference is nominal.
Sony's DCR-HC40 is meant for automatic use, and it does this job well, definitly playing up Sony's reputation of "best ease of use out there." There is some nice editing software included (for a camcorder, anyway) but, by and large, this stuff is not for tinkering with: point, and shoot. In the automatic control category, the spot metering and spot focus options found on the DCR-HC40 boost its score. These are perhaps the camcorder's best manual options.
The lion's share of the DCR-HC40's manual controls, including spot metering and spot focus, are located within Sony's Byzantine menu system, accessible using the camcorder's touch screen LCD. While the camcorder does offer a crummy optical zoom of only 10x, it is operable using an external toggle, thank the Lord. Also, while true manual focus is discouraged, being buried in the menu system, the spot focus does work pretty well.
Exposure is available in the menu system -- 24 steps on a unmeasured bar meter. There is no manual shutter speed. White balance options are short, but sweet: indoor, outdoor, and manual. No unnecessary presets. Sony's still options this year, while upgraded on the DCR-HC40, aren't the greatest. The DCR-HC40 records to Memory Stick Duo at 1152 x 864; the CCD uses a megapixel to record them.
Under low light, the DCR-HC40 does okay. It performs similarly to the DCR-HC30 but is slightly inferior to the DCR-HC65. It suffers from excessive noise and dullness at 15 lux, while at 60 lux, colors are okay and have less noise; still, it's the performance of a one-chip camcorder.
Sony has the best LCDs in the biz, bar none. They don't solarize when viewed from an angle. The DCR-HC40 is well balanced, even with the LCD open, which is very important when one considers that the display is likely to be the main means of framing shots and is the only way to control any of the manual features. The ports are well placed, and I appreciate the new internal lens cap, which eliminates nuisance-causing dangling plastic discs. New playback options, like "burn DVD" and the on-LCD record button, are neat but not incredibly useful.
Ports are hidden behind a gray plastic cover on the right side of the DCR-HC40, and include USB, FireWire, Mini A/V in/out, and LANC. The Sony DCR-HC40 also has a mic input and an S-Video jack. Analog-to-digital passthrough is available through the analog inputs. MPEG recording, as well a digitally enhanced 16:9 mode, are both present. The enhanced 16:9 mode found on the DCR-HC40 digitally manipulates the 3:4 image to produce a 16:9 aspect ratio, as opposed to the DCR-HC30's 16:9 solution of putting black bars over the top and bottom of the frame. If 16:9 is a big deal to you, this might sway your attention towards the DCR-HC40.
The bottom line is that most users would be better off with the DCR-HC30, as it costs less and doesn't sacrifice any video quality to CCD size. The still performance upgrades found on the DCR-HC40 aren't necessarily worth the extra money, as they consist largely of superficial variations that offer little improvement to already crappy stills.
| Sony DCR-HC40 - THE
BOTTOM LINE
Rating: 95.85 |
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| Likes |
| - LCD quality
- Ease of use - Decent low light and video quality |
| Dislikes |
| - Zooms
- Still options - Mediocre manual control |
Sony DCR-HC40
Compared to the...
| Sony
DCR-HC30 Rating: 94.70 |
Canon
Elura 65 Rating: 99.85 |
JVC
GR-DX307 Rating: 95.35 |
Panasonic
PV-GS15 Rating: 99.50 |
Canon
Elura 70 Rating: 100.22 |
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| Better | Better | Better | Better | Better |
| None | - Still resolution
- CCD size - Pixel count - Handling - Video performance - 16x optical zoom |
- 3 inch LCD
- Still resolution: 1600 x 1200 - CCD size |
- 24x optical zoom
- 800x digital zoom - Video performance |
- 18x optical zoom
- 360x digital zoom - CCD specs - Handling - Video performance |
| Equal | Equal | Equal | Equal | Equal |
| - LCD
- Ports - Mic input - Zooms - Video and Low light performance |
- Manual Control
- CCD specs -Ports |
- 10x optical zoom
- Low light and video performance - Ports |
- Manual Control
- No shoe, no mic input |
- Manual control
- Ports |
| Worse | Worse | Worse | Worse | Worse |
| - 1/6 inch CCD
- Pixel count - Still resolution - Cold shoe - LCD - Ease of use |
- Ease of use
- LCD - Low light performance |
- No accessory shoe
- Manual options - Ease of use - LCD |
- 1/6 inch CCD
- Still capability - Ports (no analog to digital passthrough) - Low light performance - LCD, ease of use |
- Low light performance
- LCD Ease of use |
