Thoughts on Sony's HC42?

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Anyone have any experience or thoughts on this cam? I'm not looking to use it specifically for skydiving, its going to be used as more of a general use kind of thing, so I don't want to spend a fortune on it. On the other hand, I don't want to be stuck with an extremely limited cam that doesn't provide any kind of decent quality video. I was hoping this model would be a good "middle ground" between the HC21 and HC90 or PC350.

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[airborne82nd 0]

its so small and powerful you can mount 4 on your helmet and still have room

i side mount it but it’s a great video quality and lots of functions very light. Nice cam you can skydive it put it into a underwater housing for scuba cam, make your own videos, family, vacation, personal porn tape ( tommy lee and pam type )

it’s a great cam

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haha, thanks for the info man... I'm trying to talk damn circuit city into giving it to me at a decent price so I won't have to order it online. Its $599 in circuit city and $499 online... I can't pay 100 bucks more just to get it local.

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[freekflyguy 0]

I have the HC30E which I have had for a year. I use it on a side mount and top mounted on a FTP in a DBox.

I cannot recomend the HC30E highly enough, I can only imagine the 42 will be just as good.

Buzz

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

[riggerrob 643]

I bought a Sony HC40 last year and it worked great for 200 tandem jumps.
When I inspected an HC42, I noticed only a couple of minor changes from its predecessor. The HC42 is aboutinch 1/4 of an inch wider and the power switch is 1/2 inch higher.
Aside from the docking station, HC40 and HC42 are almost identical.

[murrays 0]

I was looking at one a couple of days ago as well....One thing about the HC42 that I think is cool is that it shoots in 16:9 as well as 4:3. And I understand it doesn't do this by just letterboxing the 4:3 image.

I think it would be very cool to shoot skydiving in 16:9. I imagine that it would prevent firewiring stuff to you buddies unless they had a camera with similar 16:9 capabilities.

iMovie HD in Apple's iLife'05 will edit in 16:9 so I'm ready to go today....just got too many other things to buy and pay for first.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[lummy 4]

Quote

I think it would be very cool to shoot skydiving in 16:9.

Maybe I'm wrong about this since I just bought my PC101 and haven't read the manual, yet . Anyways, when I start it in video mode, it tells me that it's set at 16:9. Maybe that's common for most Sony camcorders?

I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

[murrays 0]

My understanding is that the HC42 technology is different. Here's a review that says it shoots in true 16:9WIDE mode.

Here's the quote:
Wide Mode Function: You can record in 16:9 WIDE mode which is a true wide aspect and will play back on a wide-screen 16:9 aspect ratio TV.

I also found this on the Sonystyle Canada website.

here's a quote:
"Unlike other wide-aspect camcorders that simply crop the top and bottom of the frame to mimic the look and feel of widescreen, the DCRHC42 captures more of the image, extending the scope from standard 4:3 Mega-wide shooting mode and recording the whole picture. Create digital video and playback for a complete theatre-like experience, or record in standard 4:3 Mega-wide shooting. The redesigned LCD also gives you the function and flexibility to do more."


If that isn't different from say, your PC101 then I am wrong.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[kelpdiver 2]

it's definitely oriented at 16:9 - even the LCD is widescreen. But I've been waiting to see reviews to see if it really delivered a better picture than any of the 4:3 CCDs with a widescreen mode. So far I only found one customer review - not very positive.

[IvanPeters 0]

The 16:9 format is exactly the same resolution as 4:3. The difference is that the pixels are wider. The reason for this is probably something to do with not needing to change the TV signal and/or TV design too much. The effect is that a 16:9 video will play on a normal 4:3 TV - is will just appear squashed. Something recorded in 16:9 can be firewired between cameras without a problem and will display correctly on a widescreen TV.

Sony cameras have been able to shoot 16:9 for some time now (I know my PC110 was able to do it). Exactly how this was done has changed. I was told (but was never able to conclusively test it myself) that my PC110 did it by post-processing the image. In other words, it captured a normal 4:3 frame, then digitally chopped off the top and bottom and zoomed in a bit. The effect of this is that you no longer have as many horizontal lines in the picture resulting in a loss of quality. It's possible that this is a simplified description of what happened. Another explanation could be that a 16:9 image is captured off the CCD but the way the CCD processed pixels into lines didn't change. Either way, it's the same end result.

The newer cameras capture the 16:9 image right off the CCD at full vertical resolution so there is no loss of quality. This is what Sony are calling True 16:9.

I like the 16:9 format and use it whenever I can. Unfortunately, it's not often. Here's one I did earlier (but with a TRV60 not an HC42).

Ivan