Sony HDR-HC1 HDV Camcorder Review

The right side of the HDR-HC1’s lens barrel has just two buttons. The first is the flash toggle button, followed towards the front by a sliding NightShot button. Above the two buttons is the right channel microphone. At the very front is the combo (focus/zoom) ring.
The right side of the HDR-HC1 is laid out very well. The buttons are easily accessible by your left hand and there is not too much clutter.

Back (6.0)
The back of the HDR-HC1 is just about as simple as the other sections, though it seems that any touch screen camcorder is going to generally have a very simple body with few buttons. At the top is the viewfinder which can rotate upwards by about 70 degrees, but it cannot extend outwards from the camcorder body.

Below the viewfinder is the battery slot which is almost flush with the rest of the back of the camcorder. This means that even the included battery extends outwards a bit. The included battery does not extend out farther than the viewfinder, but most users are likely to purchase a large capacity battery. This means that you could be in the awkward situation of having your battery extend out farther from the back of your camcorder than the viewfinder. Your nose is going to become pretty good friends with your battery if you use your viewfinder often. I really wish that Sony had made the viewfinder extendable; otherwise it really makes the camcorder much harder to operate through the viewfinder. Adding insult to injury, the viewfinder is a very critical portion on this camcorder--its resolution is twice that of the LCD screen, and you’re almost always going to need to use it for manual focusing over the LCD screen.

To the right side of the viewfinder and the battery is a Control-L / LANC jack for attaching a zoom controller or an edit controller. Below this is the record start / stop button in a metallic silver with a red dot in the center. To the right of those is the other side of the mode dial, with a textured surface as well as a green engage button.

The Left Side (9.25)
Starting at the back of the left side of the HDR-HC1, there is a section of the camcorder running from top to bottom which is a bit thinner than the rest of the body. This strip runs right up to the LCD screen, which sticks out about ¼ inch from the strip. The LCD screen and most of the rest of the left side is covered in a slightly more polished and shiny black material than the starting strip. It’s as though there is a “based body” and then the LCD and the lens barrel are attached onto that base body and stand out with their different material and more forward placement. The recessed section connects with a second vertical strip which runs along the length of the recorder lobe.

This vertical strip includes jacks as well as some controls. The vertical strip starts with a connector for a neck strap. Moving towards the lens barrel, the vertical strip next includes the DC in jack, which is covered in a soft rubber. After the DC in jack is a flip down port cover which covers up the A/V out as well as the component out jacks. The port cover is a new design that we haven’t seen before. Instead of being made out of a slightly pliable rubber, or a hard plastic and being attached to the camcorder’s body by one point, the new jack cover is like a door with a hinge which opens downward. It has a spring action to make it slightly lock into place, and on its left side is a small indentation so you can get your finger under it to open it up. When it’s closed it sits flush with the rest of the camcorder body. I really like this new port cover. It feels very industrial and strong.

To the left of the first new port cover is a second group of jacks with the HDV/DV jack and the USB jack. Although Sony is labeling it HDV / DV, the jack is really just a FireWire jack. This port is also covered up with the new style port cover. To the left of this is the exposure / volume toggle button as well as the adjustment slider. I really like the positioning of these dials. It was a very smart move of Sony to put a dedicated exposure control on the HDR-HC1. The placement towards the lens barrel is smart as well because most of the other manual controls are located in this region.

Above the vertical strip is the LCD screen, which has a slightly curved exterior. Opening the LCD screen revels a hidden LCD area with only two buttons, the Display / Battery Info button and an Auto Lock switch. The LCD screen itself has three buttons at the left side: a zoom in button, zoom out button, and a record start / stop button, duplicated here for convenience.

Moving onto the left side of the lens barrel, at the very front of the lens barrel is the zoom / focus ring. Moving in, towards the camcorder body, are two rows of features. The first row contains the ring control switch. The switch has three positions. The first sets the focus to auto and turns the ring to zoom mode. The second position sets the focus to auto, and turns the ring off, meaning it doesn’t control focus or zoom. The third position sets the ring to control focus. After this switch is the Sony’s CMOS logo, with Carl Zeiss, Vario-Sonar, T* (Sony’s lens coating for high-end camcorders). The second row of control includes three round buttons. The first is the Tele Macro button which allows the camcorder to shoot objects at a very close distance. The middle button is the extended focus button which instantly zooms the picture in 4x and displays it on the LCD and viewfinder (but does not record it to tape) to help in focusing for HD. The third button is the back light button.

I think the left side of the HDR-HC1 is laid out wonderfully. I like how all the picture functionality buttons are concentrated towards the front of the camcorder, on or near the lens barrel. This is where my left hand always rests when I’m shooting and it’s the natural place to put any shooting functionality buttons. The new jack covers are great and placing the jacks on the bottom left side where they are accessible but not in the way is very smart. There really isn’t much I’d improve on the left side, but I would like to see Sony better utilize the inner LCD area. Maybe put a secondary (or tertiary) display there, with maybe an audio monitor, tape counter and other info. I would have liked to have seen VCR control buttons on the inside of the LCD as is found on many models, but it doesn’t seem like that will ever happen with Sony’s obsession with everything touch screen. Once your manufacturer goes touch screen, they’ll never go back.

The Top (6.0)
The top of the HDR-HC1 is pretty simple. At the very front on the lens barrel is the pop-up flash, which has the marketing line “2.8 Megapixels” etched in it. Behind that, on the flash, is a “120x digital zoom” and the second appearance of Sony’s CMOS logo etched in. Moving onto the body is Sony’s “intelligent” accessory shoe. It’s intelligent if you think being proprietary and throwing out a standard of every imaging product over the past few decades is intelligent. The shoe is Sony’s new proprietary shoe which only accepts newer Sony accessories. The shoe is covered in a hard plastic cover. To the right of the plastic cover is a small grip strip. The back of the camcorder then slopes upward following along with the viewfinder, which is at the back of the top. To the right of the viewfinder on the top of the camcorder is the zoom toggle and the photo button.