Sony DCR-HC40 1-Megapixel Handycam Mini DV Digital Camcorder

Author's Rating:

Pros: Easy to use in auto mode, excellent video performance, features

Cons: Difficult to access and use manual controls, price, still picture performance

The Bottom Line: 
If you want an easy-to-use camcorder with excellent video quality and features, the HC40 is a good choice. But if you want more easily accessible manual control or good still...

Author's Review
As time goes by, consumer electronic products get smaller, lighter and cheaper while adding features at the same time. Unfortunately, nothing is free.

The Sony DCR-HC40 is a digital camcorder that uses MiniDV tapes as media and features a 1-Megapixel CCD imaging sensor, 2.5-inch touch-panel LCD screen, color viewfinder and can take digital still pictures.

Looks

Some elements of the HC40 look stylish and some look cheap. The tape door and the whole side have cheap look with grayish plastic. The opposite side with the LCD look stylish with its metallic accents.

The camcorder is quite compact, although not as small as the most miniature models. It is convenient to hold and the main controls are within easy reach. Notice that I say “main controls”.

LCD

The camcorder has a 2.5-inch LCD (a pretty standard size for a camcorder) as well as a color viewfinder. You will probably have to use the LCD almost exclusively, as the viewfinder does not tilt from its position, it can only extend slightly. That’s right – the viewfinder is fixed and this fact prevents you from using it in many situations. No matter, since its use instead of the LCD doesn’t help energy conservation much.

The LCD can be very bright (if you need it to), works well in sunlight and lets you control the camcorder’s many functions by tapping the choices that appear on it. Although it makes it somewhat easier to navigate the menus, this method has a couple of drawbacks.

Firstly, some “virtual buttons” on the screen are too small and I had to concentrate on touching them precisely. If you touch off-center of the button, it might not work. Also, it is not easy to point the camcorder in the right direction while trying to tap on the screen in the correct spot with the other hand.

The functions like manual focus, spot light metering and focus, white balance, exposure control and others are buried in the menu system and are not easily and quickly accessible.

I remember how easy it once was to access important or semi-important functions like manual focus or exposure on the older cameras. On the TRV120, you could quickly push the button on the back of the camera and rotate the wheel to adjust manual exposure. Or move the switch in front of the LCD and rotate the ring around the lens to adjust the manual focus when the auto focus decides to focus on a wire fence instead of the object behind it.

With this camcorder, you have to either tap on the screen to let camera know where you want it to focus, or tap on “+” and “-“ in the manual focus mode – a slow and error prone process.

I am sure that it is cheaper to use a touch-sensitive screen than have a bunch of buttons, switches etcetera. And it will work well for majority of people majority of time. But if you intend to use manual controls a lot, the HC40 is probably not for you.

The target audience for this camcorder is epitomized by the prominent “Easy” button, which, when engaged, switches the camcorder to full auto mode and even increases the font size on the screen to make operation easier.

Zoom and Resolution

The camcorder has 10x optical zoom and digital zoom of up to 120x. The lens is Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar and is multi-coated to reduce glare and improve contrast. It is worth mentioning that the camcorder uses a 1/5-inch CCD sensor with 1,070,000 pixels, of which 1,000,000 (1 Megapixel) is used for still pictures and only 690,000 pixels are used for video.

One of the reasons for less pixels used for video is the digital image stabilization. The camcorder uses digital image stabilization to reduce shake when shooting handheld or from a moving vehicle.

Either way, 690,000 pixels is more than enough for video and here’s why. The digital video in standard definition (virtually all consumer-level digital camcorders) is recorded in 480i format, which means 480 lines of vertical resolution. With up to 520 lines of horizontal resolution, we need only 249,600 pixels. As such, 690,000 pixels is more than enough. Unless digital zoom is used, that is.

The optical zoom if 10x is normally good enough for many situations and the mild digital zoom does not produce poor image quality either, due to the CCD’s resolution.

Performance

The overall picture quality of the video this camcorder produces is excellent. The colors are vivid, images sharp and edges of objects are well-defined. The sound is adequate for travel and “people” events. The camcorder has digital image stabilization, which works very well and is useful at the lower end of the zoom let alone at the high zoom levels. The camcorder has no problem keeping many objects in focus at the same time (it has a wide depth of field) due to the small size of its CCD and use of wide angle lens.

The digital still images can be taken at 1152x864 (1 Megapixel) as well as at 640x480 (VGA) resolutions and don't look good. They may be good enough for emailing or posting on the web site. Obviously, the resolution is not high enough to produce excellent-looking prints. The 6x4 print would have resolution of about 200 dpi, which would have been acceptable. But the stills don't look good even for that resolution. You will be much better served by a dedicated digital still camera.

Formats

The camcorder records video on the MiniDV tape and can store digital still pictures on a Memory Stick Duo (in JPEG format). No MiniDV tape is included, but an 8-Megabyte Memory Stick Duo is provided. The standard-sized Memory Stick cannot be used.

You can use standard SP speed with MiniDV tape or LP speed, which lets you record 50% more on the same tape with no loss of quality. The drawbacks are lack of ability to perform audio dubbing (but who uses it anyway?) and the warning in the manual that the LP-recorded tapes might not play well in other MiniDV camcorders.

Connectivity

The camcorder has i.Link (FireWire) high-speed digital connection for transferring video in digital format to your computer or standalone DVD recorder with no loss in quality. Also present are USB 1.1 (for picture download and video streaming) and A/V/S-Video connections (both in and out).

The A/V input can be used to convert analog video to digital format and either record it on MiniDV tape or stream it to your computer. This is very useful for archiving (you can create DVDs of your older footage).

The camcorder has an Intelligent Accessory Shoe, which is close to the viewfinder (not too good of an idea, unless you have to mount a long microphone). If you are a complete geek, you can even attach a portable printer to it.

A microphone input is present (as I mentioned, the camcorder’s stereo microphone is adequate for most tasks, but if you want to connect a better one or the one that is closer to the action, you can use this input).

Also present a LANC editing controller interface.

Battery

The NP-FP50 battery is supplied and lasts about 40-80 minutes, depending on usage. If you record continuously with LCD off, you may get up to 90 minutes. If you use LCD with backlight and turn the camcorder on and off, don’t expect more than 40-50 minutes.

The battery is of “InfoLithium” kind – you can see the remaining battery power in minutes. A useful feature, but supplying the battery of larger capacity would have been better still.

Remote Control

The remote control lets you control not only the playback, but the recording as well. It has zoom and recording control.

Bottom Line

If you want an easy-to-use camcorder with excellent video quality and features, the HC40 is a good choice. But if you want more easily accessible manual control or good still picture performance, look elsewhere.

Note: the Sony DCR-HC20 (click here for review) costs less than $400, but lacks analog inputs Memory Stick capability and has slightly lower resolution.

Also, check out the Sony HC30 and the DVD camcorders - Sony DCR-DVD101 and Sony DCR-DVD201.


My Reviews of Other Digital Camcorders

Sony DVD Camcorders:
Sony DCR-DVD201 Handycam DVD Camcorder Review
Sony DCR-DVD101 Handycam DVD Camcorder Review

Sony MiniDV Camcorders:
Sony DCR-HC40 1-Megapixel Handycam Mini DV Digital Camcorder Review
Sony DCR-HC30 Handycam Mini DV Digital Camcorder Review
Sony DCR-HC20 Handycam Mini DV Digital Camcorder Review

Sony Digital8 Camcorders:
Sony DCR-TRV460 Handycam Digital8 Digital Camcorder Review

Panasonic MiniDV Camcorders:
Panasonic PV-GS200 Palmcorder 3CCD Mini DV Digital Camcorder Review
Panasonic PV-GS120 Palmcorder Mini DV Digital 3CCD Camcorder Review