Sony HandyCam DVD506 given to me for 2 days

[Geekster]

Hello all

I am looking to buy a new camcorder to mainly film the new baby ,holidays etc. I guy at work gave me the classic line, 'Oh I have got just what you need'

He has a Sony HandyCam DVD506E, bought 6 months ago and used for a total of 10mins.

He is selling it to me for £300, which leads to my first question, is that a good buy?

Anyway, I used it at home last night to film the baby; my first impressions were good, very easy to use, small and quick to start.

I liked the playback with the scene selector and the touch screen. However the fun ended when I tried to play back the footage on a big screen.

The software 'Sony Picture Motion Browser' is only compatible with XP and Vista 32.
I have Vista 64 and plugging in the camera via USB resulted in a blue screen of death on the PC.

I have brought it into work and have plugged it into my XP Laptop and updated the
'Sony Picture Motion Browser' software with a patch from the website.
I am transferring the footage from the Camcorder via USB2 which leads to another question, should 20 mins of footage take 1hr 10mins to transfer? 400MB. It seems far too long.

So questions in summary:

1. £300 for a nearly new Sony HandyCam DVD506E, deal or no deal?

2. Any advice for capturing the footage with software other than 'Sony Picture Motion Browser' because it is not compatible with Vista 64

3. Should I buy a HDD camcorder, will the transfer be quicker?
Sorry about the long post, any answers or part answers much appreciated .

Thanks
Mick

[redsox_mark]

1. £300 for a nearly new Sony HandyCam DVD506E, deal or no deal?

Cheapest price for a new one on pricerunner is £447, so it seems a fair price.

2. Any advice for capturing the footage with software other than 'Sony Picture Motion Browser' because it is not compatible with Vista 64

Easiest way is to finalise the camcorder disc, and use this in an editor. I like Sony Vegas and would suggest Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum; I think the latest version runs on Vista 64, you can try it. You can then use the function "open DVD camcorder disc" to edit.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ct.asp?pid=447


3. Should I buy a HDD camcorder, will the transfer be quicker?
Something is wrong if it is taking you that long to transfer, it must be re-encoding it.

[redsox_mark]

And look at the FAQ for posts about issues with DVD camcorders...

[Geekster]

Thanks for the quick answer, 400MB took 2hours 15 mins in the end. How do I know if the camera is re-encoding. I just connected via USB2 clicked on 'disk' on the LCD of the camera and the transfer started.

Thanks

Mick

[redsox_mark]

It is not the camera which would be re-encoding, it would be the software. Ive not used that software, but if it is taking that long it must be doing something. You could compare the file sizes on the original disc in the camcorder vs. the resulting output.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Geekster

Hello all

The software 'Sony Picture Motion Browser' is only compatible with XP and Vista 32.
I have Vista 64 and plugging in the camera via USB resulted in a blue screen of death on the PC.

I have brought it into work and have plugged it into my XP Laptop and updated the
'Sony Picture Motion Browser' software with a patch from the website.
I am transferring the footage from the Camcorder via USB2 which leads to another question, should 20 mins of footage take 1hr 10mins to transfer? 400MB. It seems far too long.

That transfer rate must be wrong. I tranferred about 6 Gb via the USB connection using "Sony Picture Motion Browser" in less than 10 minutes with at more than 5 year old Pc with 1 Gb memory and 2.7 GHz processor.