[Daniel B]

Hi chaps,
I have just taken delivery of a HC45E, was planning on a 35E but they were discontinued!

It comes with a NP-FH30 battery, which I gather will give me maybe an hours recording.

On the box it suggests purchasing an FH70 battery, so I googled, but only came up with NPFP batteries, are these totally different?

Found this place here, which I gather are not offical Sony batteries, is that likely to be detrimental to the camera?

http://www.batterycenter.co.uk/batte...FQYhEAodnU-2qw

Now the 70 there lists it as being 7.4V , compatible with 7.2V (The one with the camera is 7.2V, so should I stick to a 7.2V one?

Confusingly further down the page we have:

◆ Item Number: ECSN047G
◆ Volts: 7.2V(Compatible with 7.4V)
◆ Capacity: 1750mAh
List price:￡39.85
Your price:￡33.87+(S&H rates)


And:

◆ Item Number: ECSN048G
◆ Volts: 7.4(Compatible with 7.2V)
◆ Capacity: 2460mAh
List price:￡39.29
Your price:￡33.40+(S&H rates)

The latter one has a huge mAh rating, so which one should I go for....?

Are there any other recommended battery suppliers I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance, looking forward to playing with my new toy at the weekend!

Any tips on charging the battery for the 1st time (The one that comes with the camera) a mate says 16 hours should do for the 1st charge.

Cheers

Dan

[redsox_mark]

The FH70 (and the FH30) are new, "H series" batteries. According to Sony, you can only use H series batteries in your camcorder.

Because it is new there may not be any "clone" batteries available yet. Here is a link showing the official Sony one.

http://www.askdirect.co.uk/uview?cal...84&topcatid=10

The "P series" batteries (e.g. NP-FP70) are different; though they are the same size, and Sony says the new H series batteries will work in camcorders which take the P series. (But not vice versa).

Now the official position from Sony is always that you can only use official Sony ones, otherwise if the camcorder blows up then tough luck. So you either pay a lot for Sony batteries or take your chances.

As the H series works with camcorders which take P, I don't see why the P wouldn't work with your camcorder - except that the manual explicitly says to only use H series.

Sony has been increasingly adding in checks so that the camcorder will only accept certain batteries; it may be that while the "P" battery will physically fit your camcorder may reject it.

[redsox_mark]

Here is a better price, direct from Sony Style

http://shop.sonystyle-europe.com/Son...shop=SST_GB_EN

[Daniel B]

Hi Mark,
many thanks for your reply, after reading the manual properly I noticed that the H seems to be a new range of batteries, which is a bit of a bugger.

Thanks for the link, seems to be £70 which seems a tad costly, as it only cost me £189 to start with.

I'll see how I go and hopefully in a few months there will be some clones on the market, I dare say i can live with the shorter life battery in the meantime.

Cheers

Dan