Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DCR-PC101 Mini DV Camcorder

This is my first digital camcorder and it took me a while to come to my decision. I'm glad I chose this one! It has excellent Sony build quality, and the picture quality is just fantastic.
I do agree with the other reviews that you need fairly small hands/fingers, but it's pretty easy to get the hang of. It's worth it being a bit fiddly, just for the portability! It's a very good size.
Editing videos on the computer is incredibly simple, too. Simply plug in via Firewire (cable not included), capture the video (fast and easy), edit, and then you can easily send it back to the tape in the camera! Great!
The touch screen works very well, but some of the features are a bit hidden away in menus. You probably won't use the special effects much, if you're going to edit on a computer, but they're a nice inclusion, if just to show off to friends!
Microphone isn't directional (so it picks up all sound in all directions), which can be a bit of a problem, but this is the same with most camcorders. Just grab yourself an external mic. Very good sound quality!

So overall, easy to use, easy to edit, brilliant sound and picture quality. Get one now!

Since about 48 hrs I'm the proud and happy owner of the Sony PC101 digicam. This is great! The cam is easy to operate (despite the heavy manual), has all features you'll ever need and weights no more than a glove. The touch screen is intuitive and can easily be handled both during recordings and during editing. I like the option to record photos on the memory stick even we you're in camera mode (as far as I know it was not possible in the earlier models). Photo quality is comparable with my DCS-S70 in the lower pixels resolutions. The standard battery runs more than 100 minutes which is just fine for most applications. One tiny shortcoming is the lack of a iLink/Firewire cable in the package. (I can't wait to connect this amazing device to my new mac to edit the recordings.) By the way, the PC101 is your friend when you want to digitize your analogue videos, because it has a video-in for analogue signals.

A guy with a smile on his face.

I recently brought this camcorder, and have since been amazed by what i am able to achieve.
I have had not one problem with this camcorder, and have discovered the amount that i can achieve.
Its size was the main selling point to me, i have fairly small hands and i found many of the larger camcorders hard to opperate.
This one just fits snuggly in my hands. this is also a drawback to the camera, as many of my friends have larger hands and find the camera too small and fiddley, and had no control when using it. appart from that i can not think of any other bad points to this camcorder.
features like the touch screen i have found more fun than anything, and the digital effects really suprised me in the fact that there were alot more than i had expected!
Overall i can not praise this digital camcorder enough, and would recomend it to any one (Without giant hands).

My first experience using a digital camcorder and have to say it's pretty easy. Quality of the picture is outstanding and the anti-shake facility makes a big difference. Being able to shoot in low light conditions saves having to get additional lighting. Only criticism, and I suppose that goes for all this miniturisation, is that the controls require deft finger work. Just a matter of getting used to but did take some time. Otherwise, for the purposes of shooting the family, editing via the PC and burning CD-roms to send to relatives/friends around the world, just fantastic.

well firsly i'd never operated a cam corder, let alone set one up from scratch, i was expecting a nightmare. not so, this cam corder is as easy as to use on memory stick / tape, playing back through television / video via scart, or via USB. the touch screen is really easy to use and the menus make it easy to guess where to change things when you need to. to use the digital zoom i think you'll need a tripod, to get good quality motion pictures burnt to CD (in whatever format) you need firewire PCI card for your PC as well as a cable to attach. the streaming USB capture from memory stick / tape is easy to operate but the highest quality you can achieve with MPEG 1 is 'web cam' -esq. although i have nothing to compare this to i'm very happy with performance of the cam corder certainly in terms of size vs. picture quality