CAMCORDER FEATURES
I’ve found the sound crisp and clear in my recordings and never thought I needed an external mic. The zoom works smoothly and proceeds quickly or not depending how you slide the button. Giving a sense of control and a professional look to your home movies. It has ’steadyshot’ built in and this does work very well compared to other peoples home movies I’ve seen. No feelings of nausea when watching my films! This camcorder also has nightshot and super nightshot (16 times brighter), which work very well. You can safely walk around in the dark looking through the viewfinder and see exactly where you’re going. The camcorder is easily connected directly to your video via the supplied A/V cable, if you have such a connection. Otherwise you can buy a PC to TV cable (S Video) and then use your video to record like a normal TV program. The camcorder has it’s own S video socket so the picture retains it’s quality.

STORAGE
Using a 4mb memory stick will let you hold up to 37 640×480 photos or nearly three 15-second vga video clips. I’ve found the digital photo quality excellent (I’m an amateur photographer) and the digital video adequate. Now unless you have a Sony pc with a built in memory stick slot you’ll have to use the USB cable to transfer these to your computer. On my Dell laptop this didn’t work after repeated attempts without any clear reason as to why. It states in the manual that this is not guaranteed to work even with their recommended operating systems, thus I put it down to ‘just one of those things’. So I had to find another way, which meant buying a Sony memory stick PC card adaptor. This works easily and without fault and wasn’t too expensive.

BATTERY LIFE

I actually prefer to use a larger Sony battery also suipplied which means you can forget about ‘battery life’, the larger one can go for 10 hours before needing charging and adds minimal extra bulk to this little baby.

EXTRA ACCESSORIES
Some items available to buy are telescopic lenses, mics, flashes, batteries and even and very cool tripod. I bought the tripod which, allows you to use your supplied remote from afar whilst taking group photos at special occasions etc. It is very sturdy and allows that ‘professional edge’ to your filming. Mini tripods are out there these day’s for a few pounds, these easily screw into the base of the camera allowing some more versatility. If you plan on using the nightshot function a lot I’d recommend one of those infrared photon torches, they really help recording in pitch-black darkness. You can buy larger MB memory sticks too (32mb, 64mb etc). One really cool thing is a waterproof casing that allows you to go swimming with your camera and film the fish, albeit not below 2 meters.

supplied with;

1 SONY DCR PC9E CAMERA
1 OPERATING MANUAL
1 REMOTE CONTROL
1 SONY AC POWER ADAPTOR AC-L10A
1 BATTERY CHARGER ADAPTOR
1 FIGURE 8 MAINS LEAD
3 SONY INFOLITHIUM BATTERIES
1 SCART ADAPTOR
1 WIDE ANGLE LENSE WITH TWO END CAPS
1 PERSONAL TIE MIC AND CLIP
1 LR44 BATTERY
1 3.5 TO 3 WAY PHONO LEAD ( 4 PINS)
5 SONY MINI DV TAPES on sale or return basis
1 INEAR HEADPHONES
1 SUCKER MOUNT AND BASE CAP BLUE
1 CAMERA MOUNTING PLATE