Digital Home Thoughts: Sony's HC1 HDV Camcorder Reviewed

The HC1 was, for me, the surprise release for 2005 from Sony. Hot on the heels of the more expensive and bigger FX1, the HC1 was the world's smallest and lightest high definition consumer camcorder. Let's take a tour around the body of the camcorder and see what this wee beastie has to offer.

The Front
Compared to previous Sony camcorders, the HC1 is pretty much just the lens at the front. The only addition is the IR receiver/emitter beneath the lens. In fact, most of the body follows the contour and size of the lens, giving you a very sleek camcorder.


Figure 1: Look into my eye ...

The Carl Zeiss lens is protected by a removable lens cover. Behind the lens sits a 16:9 CMOS sensor with almost 3,000K pixels gross, or 1,983,000 pixels effective in widescreen movie mode. The lens has a 10x optical zoom and 120x digital zoom.

Like other Sony camcorders, the camcorder can record down to 7 lux in normal operation. Unlike the PC1000 which was also released in 2005, this model has retained the NightShot function, which is where the camcorder relies on infrared light to illuminate the setting.

The Left Side
Just behind the lens is a manual rotating ring. This can be used for zoom or focusing – the choice is up to you through a slider switch.


Figure 2: Manual control at your fingertips.

Beneath that switch, you've got buttons to activate:

• Tele macro mode: allows you to shoot close-up shots by using the zoom mode and focusing down to 48cm.
  
• Expanded focus: Sony realize that the LCD viewfinder & fold-out display have limitations when you are try to film in hi-definition, so pressing on this button temporarily zooms the image displayed – without affecting what is being recorded – so that you can get the focusing just right.
  
• Back light: adjusts the exposure for backlit subjects.

Beneath those buttons, you've got controls for manually adjusting the exposure and the playback volume.

Next is the flip-out display. As seems to be the standard on Sony's 2005 models, this is a touch-sensitive display with most of the camera's controls & features accessible through the display. A benefit of the way that Sony has implemented this is that you can customise the choice of buttons that are presented to you. This means that the features you use a lot are more readily accessible and you don't have to keep on trawling through the rotating menu to find what you're looking for. The downside, though, is that it means that you can't make any changes to the settings without opening the panel up. Previous camcorders had hard buttons on the case so that you could navigate the menu system through the viewfinder.


Figure 3: Watch and touch.

The panel also has controls for zooming in & out, and recording. Unlike the PC1000, you don't have buttons for switching between 4:3 and 16:9 recordings. This is because the HC1 supports both HDV and DV recording modes – and HDV is 16:9 only. DV recordings have more options/flexibility (SP/LP, 4:3/16:9, 12/16 bit audio) and so these are set from the menu system.

Behind the panel is a button to control the display information and a slider for auto-lock. If the camcorder is locked onto automatic, you cannot change the spot meter, exposure, program AE, white balance or shutter speed.

Beneath the panel is the reason why the front of the camcorder is so clean – Sony has placed all of the I/O sockets (Firewire, USB, Component video out and Composite A/V) here behind well-designed flaps. The flaps have a solid feel to them and are sprung to stay open or closed, without being loose. This is a big improvement over the various bits of rubber or plastic that Sony used to use to cover the sockets. The main reason why it is such a big improvement is because the old design of flaps had them attached through one or two plastic hinges and I was always concerned that they were going to break and I'd end up without a socket cover.


Figure 4: A plethora of interfaces!

The HC1 is certainly very well endowed with connectivity. The component out socket ensures that you can easily get a high definition picture directly to a compatible display, while the A/V socket goes to an expansion cable to give you the more usual standard definition composite video & audio.

One of the outstanding features of the HC1 which it inherited from the FX1, is the ability to downscale HDV recordings to DV through the Firewire connector. This means that you can start recording in HDV but, if the rest of your equipment isn't HD-ready, you can edit in DV mode. Then, when you've upgraded your equipment, recapture the clips in HDV mode and you've got a hi-def version of your projects!