Sony HDR-XR520V Video
Sony HDR-XR520V Video Transcript
>> Hi I'm Tom Merritt from cnet.com at CES 2009 taking a look at the Sony Handy cam HDR-XR520V. This is a high depth camcorder with a 240 gigabyte hard drive inside. They also sell a 120 gigabyte version of this. We'll take a little tour of it here. It's got a Sony lens. Now they use Carl Zeiss on some of their others but this is a proprietary lens; 12X optical zoom; like I said it's got a hard drive inside although you are living in Sonyland so you can put a memory stick in there as well. One of the things that I'm pleased with is they have this door here allows you to get into an HDMI input. There's also proprietary video out for composite and then there's a mini USB out as well if you want to go into your computer. One of my pet peeves is when they don't put mic inputs but they have that on here--both an audio out and a mic in as well. The battery is on the back right here and if you open up you get the viewfinder. They also include a kind of an LCD viewfinder here if you'd rather look right into the lens there. You have a 3.2 touch screen for your viewfinder here as well. They have GPS, that's kind of the big thing they're pushing with this series. It does GO tagging of your shot and includes Nav tech maps in the camcorder so you can actually see by pins where your different videos and pictures were taken. I should mention it does take 12 megapixel pictures. It also has back illuminated sea moss in here as we have found is pretty good for low light shooting. There is a built-in condenser mic on the front. They said that it does 5.1 and I like that it's on the front not on the back like some of them. Like I said, it's going to retail for $14.99 and it should be about $12.99 for the 120 gigabyte model which is one half the storage of this one, and they think it will be available in March. At CES 2009 I'm Tom Merritt
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Sony Handycam HDR-XR520V Review
The good: First-rate video quality and performance; geotagging videos is fun, if limited.
The bad: Annoying menu system; no wind filter; no manual shutter-speed, iris, or audio controls; relatively big and heavy; expensive.
The bottom line: Though their geotagging capabilities are mostly novelty and their interfaces could use a complete overhaul, the top-notch video quality, performance, and consumer-friendly feature sets of the Sony Handycam HDR-XR500V and HDR-XR520V make them worthy camcorder options. Both are overpriced, but since 14 hours of recording time is plenty--especially if supplemented with flash media--the HDR-XR500V is the better deal of the two.
Sony Handycam HDR-XR520V Specs
Manufacturer: Sony
Part number: HDR-XR520V
- Product Specifications
- Product Basic Spec
Sony Handycam HDR-XR520V Prices
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