Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DCR-HC96 Handycam Mini DV camcorder [ Carl Zeiss T* lens, 10 x optical, 3 Megapixel, DV-in]

Very happy so far with this camcorder, much better image quality than my 3-year-old Canon MV600i, especially in low light/indoors where the Canon used to get very grainy. Wife loves it as it's easy to use: just turn on, single button to record, then place it in the docking station to show grandma her grandson on the big tv. Great. I was torn between this, the triple CCD Panasonic gs300, and the JVC MG77 (which records to hard drive in mpeg2). Tried all three in a high street store (took my own sd card and tape along too to compare image quality when i got home). Loved the jvc for size and being able to see thumbnails of recorded stuff, but editing mpeg2 was a pain, and i'd have to spend hours archiving the stuff to dvd anyway. Mini-dv was far easier to edit , you already have your archive on tape, and image quality looked far better i'm guesing due to less compression on the dv format compared to mpeg2. This Sony beat the triple-CCD Panasonic on picture quality by a long way in my opinion in low light settings and was comparable if not better in normal light so it had to be the Sony.

I've used a few camcorders over the last couple of years but the 3.0MP quality of this camera is really good. The controls are easy to use and for "point and shoot" (with the touch-panel on the LCD used for setup), there's quite a lot of effects and things you can change (i.e. the focus/exposure etc) but don't expect lots of manual control over what it does. You can make quite good recordings in low light, much better than what I had expected and in 'nightshot' mode too. The review mentions NTSC, though the UK Spec camera I received is PAL. Buy a Memory Stick DUO to take stills (or use the 32Mb one I upgraded a while ago from a PSP) and another battery if the standard 90 minutes record time is not sufficient. Worked out of the box on an Apple iMAC Intel with iMovie (Firewire) and the Sony supplied software (on Windows XPSP2/USB2.0).

Bought the DCR HC96 for my girlfriend for hre birthday. I am very happy with the picture quality. Colour and resolution is excellent from the 3MP CCD although red's do look a little more vibrant than they actually are. I also wanted to buy the water proof housing for my camcorder so that narrowed down my choice. Camcorder feels light and is very easy to use. Camcorder has DV in and out, so I can archive my movies back to miniDV after editing (don't trust just leaving my movies on my PC's hard disk). I still think minDV is still the best format if you want to edit your movies after. Also, blank miniDV's are very cheap now. HD camcorders are suspect if you subject the camcorder to high vibration like water-sports or snowboarding...far better sticking with miniDV. Camcorder does not come with a firewire/iLINK cable which is dissapointing but these can easily be bought for £2-5. As with all camcorders battery life is not great (roughly 1h with battery suplied) so budget to buy a spare. Sony factor co. sell spares batteries with high capacity (mAH) for less than £10. Video footage can be store to tape or memory card (MS duo), however camcorder cannot write to cards larger than 2GB....which will let you store lots of stills but only 5.5mins of video at the best resolution. Optical zoom is good and auto-focus keeps up most of the time. Forget about digital zoom since this is just cropping the image. All in all one of the best miniDv camcorders on the market for less than £400

pros: lighweight, small, outstanding picture quality

Cons: sony accessories are expensive, memory card limmited to 2GB, no firewire lead provided

like i said it is one of the best cameras i`ve seen for a long time.there`s no point in talking about it`s features `cause many of us dont understand them anyway so i`m just gonna tell you that it`s brilliant.if you`ve got the money don`t even think about buing another camcorder.the quality of the picture it`s AMAZING.just make sure you buy yourself a spare baterry `cause the one that comes with this camera won`t last you for more than 1 hour.go for it and you wont be sorry.

I've previously used the Sony DRC-H15e which in itself was an excellent camera therefore when buying a new camera I wanted something as good and if possible better. After extensive research I went for HC96 which was the correct decision for me.

I went for this camera mainly because it seems to be the top end of the Sony Mini DV models, it has a microphone input and because of the reported excellent picture quality.

I have to say the picture quality is the best I have seen for the cost of the camera and so far I'm extremely happy with the camera. If you want a decent camera I would spend that bit extra rather than going for the cheapest models. I have also been told that DV as opposed to hard disk cameras are still slightly better quality.

Also delivery was excellent- ordered late on a Sunday and was with me by Tuesday morning.