[sidefall]

I asked about hard drive camcorders a few weeks ago...

I was told that the picture quality of the best of the current batch of HDD camcorders will be a slight step down from my GS400. So I'm going to hang on to the GS400 for a bit longer.

However, I think I need an HDD camcorder as well.

The top of the range models appear to be the Sony SR90 and the JVC MG505, and I can't decide between them.

SR90 has a 1/3" CCD, MG505 has 3 x 1/4.5" CCDs. I think the Sony has a viewfinder and LCD, but the JVC has LCD only. Both have 10x zoom lenses and electronic image stabilisation. Beyond that I'm not sure if there are any significant differences.

What do others think? Is there a comparative review anywhere on the net? What are the relative merits of three small CCDs compared to one larger CCD? Low light performance is important to me as I often film indoors without extra lighting.

A third option would be to get a Sony SR1 HD HDD camcorder. I don't need to shoot HD at the moment (and probably never will), but I've heard that, even when viewed in SD, pictures from HD cams look better than SD ones because of the superior optics and CCD. Is this true? Apparently the 1/3" ClearVID sensor in the SR1 is very good. Can you set the SR1 to record in SD? If not, how easy is it to make SD DVDs on a PC? How would footage from an SR1 converted to SD compare to the pictures from the GS400?

Any advice would be greatfully appreciated, as always

[sidefall]

Another difference I noticed between the SR90 and the MG505 is that the SR90 can record in 5.1 and has a 4 channel mic. This is just a gimmick as far as I'm concerned - can it be turned off to give regular 2 channel audio?

[redsox_mark]

A good source of reviews is here
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/ratings.php


You have to translate in some cases to the US model numbers (the SR100 is like the SR90).

The review of the MG505 is more recent than the SR100, so it makes comparisons to it.

The SR1 does give you the choice of recording in SD MPEG2 format, or HD AVCHD/MPEG4 format. I'm not sure how the SD compares to the SR90 or the JVC. I would expect it to be similar - as good, but I don't think significantly better.

Generally speaking larger CCD or CMOS is better in low light; 3 CCDs can be better in colour accuracy than 1.. but that isn't always the case. Also CMOS has some advantages over CCD. I suggest not getting too bogged down in this and look at the overall performance of the different models, as it is all the parts together (sensor, lens, DSP, etc) that make the whole.

I have a tape based HDV camcorder, and whilst it can shoot either SD or HD, I always shoot in HD, and when making SD DVDs downconvert in the software; the quality looks best to me that way. The downconversion in software is fairly easy for HDV, but currently this is not the case for AVCHD (there is no software support for it yet!). The SR1 comes with some software which does allow you to convert to MPEG2.

[lurcher]

Coloursofdavid,
I was comparing the JVC with the Sony as well but I required a Viewfinder so the Sony SR90 won.
Only got it this week but used it for 3 1/2 hrs today ( NP90 Battery still showed 55 mins left ) I am happy with the pq transferred direct to dvd.
If you want a few mins of footage sending on a 8cm DVD LMK.
The CZ T* lens together with the 1/3" CCD on the SR90 is an improvement over the JVC MG50 I had earlier this year.