Product Review
 

Sony HVR-A1U HDV One-Chip High Definition Video Camera

Part III

November, 2007

John E. Johnson, Jr.

 

In Use

Since it was lunchtime when I started taking test videos, I began with this Fuji apple on my kitchen counter. Perfect rendition. It was delicious too.

For greens, I used this succulent in our garden. Texture is good, and the highlights are not blown out.

Here began the surprises. This intense purple flower is sometimes a bit too strong in digital photos, but not here.

The ability of the Sony to photograph highly saturated reds blew me away. This was the first time that automatic exposure gave such a good result with a digital camera.

Yellow is also a tough color, but the Sony did it well. Look at the detail in the leaf veins.

When the field was all yellow, still no problem.

Slightly orange blossoms looked gorgeous. This flower is so beautiful, it looked edible, but I already had that apple for my lunch.

Our gum trees are now completely red and orange (November). The Sony showed it all in glorious detail.

Blue was perfect.

Another surprise. With all the great results so far, I could not understand why the Sony overexposed my Safeway vegetable rack test. Detail is good though, and white balance is excellent. This is a difficult scene with fluorescent lighting. Of course, setting the exposure manually would have taken care of the problem, and what this means is that you can't always count on using the Auto setting (for any camera).

The sound quality was excellent, due to the high quality condenser microphone. The video tape uploaded to my PC without issue, using Firewire and Pinnacle Studio 11. The resulting *.m2v files could be edited in Studio 11 but not in Sony Vegas 8.0, so if you want to edit your video files in Sony Vegas 8.0, you need to capture them in Vegas. Note that for playing back in your home theater, the videos can be burned to a standard DVD in HD DVD format, using Pinnacle Studio 11, and in Blu-ray format (also on a standard writeable DVD), using Sony Vegas 8.0 (if you upload the files from the camera using Vegas). About 24 minutes of high definition video will fit onto the standard writeable DVD media. So, for about $1, you can have your vacation videos in high definition, playing back on your HD DVD or Blu-ray player, with Dolby Digital sound.

The camera has a 24 FPS (Frames per Second) mode, for those who want to have a "Film Look" to their videos (movies are shot at 24 FPS). However, this will mean that your TV will have to use its 3:2 pull-down processing, and you will end up with the same artifacts ("Judder") that you see when you watch a movie on TV. But, if you do want to make a movie to show at one of the film festivals, this camera is good enough to do it.

Here is the Auto Iris test. Click on the photo below to see the video. The iris closes down very quickly.

Like other video cameras, there is some smearing when the camera is panned across bright points of light. Click on the photo to see the video. The performance is better than with previous cameras reviewed.

This is a test I use to see if there is any vertical streaking from bright lights photographed at night. The Sony does not exhibit this problem (some cameras do).

Except for the vegetable rack, the Sony HVR-A1U gave the best photographic results of any video camera I have tested so far. Of course, it is more expensive than the others, and you get what you pay for.

Go to Part IV.

© Copyright 2007 Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity

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