Sony HDR-HC1 HDV Camcorder Review

Still Features (9.0)
The HDR-HC1 records stills to MemoryStick Duos at a pixel resolution as high as 1920 x 1440. What's interesting about this pixel resolution is that it's slightly higher than the video resolution, but only vertically, not horizontally. That is to say, the resolution of the video in HD is a theoretically 1920 x 1080 pixels. When you switch to still mode it switches to 1920 x 1440. This makes sense, because the chip is actually 4:3, and Sony just lops off the top and bottom for the 16:9 HD mode. Of course, the chip has more than enough pixels, so it doesn't present any issues; the pixels are shaped so that we can still call it a native 16:9 chip camcorder.

The HDR-HC1 includes a pop-up flash which can be set to high, normal, or low. The flash has a dedicated button to engage or disengage it on the left side of the lens barrel. Additionally the HDR-HC1 includes a burst shot mode which can record 3 to 25 images consecutively in 25-second intervals. That's a pretty impressive Burst mode for a camcorder, though I wish it was in 1/4 second mode intervals. You can also shoot Exposure Bracketed bursts of three stills. The camcorder is also PictBridge-compatible, which means you can hook it up to a PictBridge-compatible printer to transfer stills for direct camcorder-to-printer printing.

Still Resolution (6.9)
Stills of a standard resolution chart were taken with the Sony HDR-HC1 and exported to Imatest Imaging Software in order to determine the camcorder’s still resolution. With this model, stills can be captured to MemoryStick Duo at several different resolutions in both 4:3 and widescreen mode; 640 x 480, 1440 x 1080, 1920 x 1080, 1920 x 1440. At their best, this model generated 695960.1675 pixels of resolution (0.7 MP). You can also capture stills at either Fine or Standard quality modes.

Still Performance (9.25)
The still performance of the HDR-HC1 is pretty phenomenal, though for a camcorder available for about two thousand bones, it can probably be considered "worth the money". The camcorder has similar still options to the DCR-PC1000, another of Sony's CMOS chip camcorders and its closest sister in the Sony line (in terms of price), though not an HDV camcorder by any means. The HDR-HC1's stills are better than the DCR-PC1000 in many ways.

The crispness of the HDR-HC1's stills are the first things you will notice. Not only are lines of the color chart crisp and full, but the lines between the color tiles are incredibly crisp and clear. Indeed, the distinctiveness of the color tiles in these stills is incredible, and nothing like what we've seen from comparable, if there are any, camcorders.

Looking at the DCR-PC1000 stills, we see more clearly other strengths of the HDR-HC1. The HDV camcorder shows very nicely balanced colors, with no washing of yellows into greens or blues into violets (as seen on the DCR-PC1000).

The only major flaw of the HDR-HC1's still performance is evident after close (or not so close) inspection of the camcorder's grayscale. There is significant bleeding occurring towards the middle of the grayscale on both the top and bottom, an unfortunate blip on an otherwise stellar image.

Still at 640 x 480

Still at 1140 x 1080

Still at 1920 x 1080 (widescreen)

Still at 1920 x 1440