Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony HDR-SR12E HD Hard Disc Drive Handycam - 10MP

This camera is nothing short of excellent. I had prvious owned a 8mm tape camcorder, and eventually sold it because of the labourious process of converting scenes to watchable content on a VCR.

The SR12 is a million miles away from that experience and I have quickly started putting together my own films. There is a total flexibility of how to watch your content, and I now store everything on my removable hard drive and play on the Lounge Media PC or PS3. DVD or Memory Stick transfer is also a breeze to share with the family.

Thouroughly recommend Vegas Platinum to edit movies also.

Film quality is excellent and the 120Gb harddisk is ample for capturing additional shots to make a final cut. Stills are very impressive and will replace a large number of applications from my current still camera (recommend 7.6 Mpixel).

The camera itself is very capable and adaptable, with a wide range of options that can be added to increase the packages capabilities.

There are no other HD camcorders that compare to this and a great price on Amazon with rapid delivery - Mine was here within 20 hours of order!

This is a brillant camcorder that I was on the point of buying to cover a holiday in Peru. HOWEVER if you look on the Sony web site for the handbook, you will discover that use above 3000metres will destroy its hard drive!!!
I have spoken to Sony UK Technical department about this and they not only confirmed the above but also said that switching to record on the memory stick will NOT get round it. As soon as you turn the camcorder on it will damage the hard drive if above 3000m.
This was not mentioned in any sales literature or specifications, only the handbook -normally read after you've bought it!!

Basically this little beauty for sony is amazing! It is the top end consumer product, with just about every feature you can think of. The fantastic HD video quality in my opinion is maybe the best quality of any HD handycam on the market (Well it is a Sony of course)

I've bought the wide conversion lens, bigger battery and zoom mic to make this thing my very own professional video camera shooting some great footage. Transferring video is easy on imovie on my macbook. What you waiting for? Buy it as I am very VERY pleased with mine!!

I purchased a brilliant Sony HDR SR12 a few weeks ago ,and a Sony 4GB memory stick, which is on the adjacent site, only to find out that "MagicGate" is not compatible with the Sr12. You will only find this out on the downloaded manual ,and that is on Page 105 of the Maintenance and Precautions section...

Having had a number of video cameras in the past, I am more than pleased with the HDR-SR12E. One reviewer complains about the quality of the stills, but for a video camera I think they are more than acceptable. Yes, the frame grabs are only about 800 to 900kb in file size, but in photo mode they are around 3mb.........perfectly adequate for holiday snaps to print at 5" X 7".

On the downside, its a nuisance having to select fade-in/out every time you use it.......my old Panasonic VHS-C camera of twenty years ago was better in that way! Also, with a camera of this value one would expect Sony to supply the full manual in booklet form rather than on cd!

I'm giving it 4 stars........a couple of quibbles in the previous paragraph, but otherwise a camera that takes super quality vids and saves you having to take a compact digi camera to the beach as well!