Sony HDR-UX20 First Impressions Camcorder Reviewby Alfredo PadillaPublished on Jan 10, 2008 3:35 PM 
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control
Sony does an excellent job with automatic controls. Simply press the Easy button and you find yourself in full automatic mode with all manual controls turned off and on-screen menu buttons doubled in size. The excellent manual controls on the Sony HDR-UX20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, ) will make it a breeze to use for most first time users, although we should note that not everything is perfect. You will find that in some situations, such as high zooms and high contrast lighting, the automatic controls will falter.
You also have a choice of several Scene Selection modes, also called “Program AE modes” that give you one-touch adjustments to certain shooting conditions that full automatic mode may have trouble accommodating. These include Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Candle, Sunrise & Sunset, Fireworks, Landscape, Portrait, Spotlight, Beach, and Snow. Spot focus is also available in the first tab of the Camera Menu and Spot Meter is in the second tab. These are the Sony-standard one touch Spot Focus and Spot Meter adjustments that allow you to just tap on the screen where you want to focus or adjust metering. As long as the subject is large enough, these features tend to work well.
Overall Manual Control
Manual controls on the Sony HDR-UX20 have taken a hit compared to last year's Sony HDR-UX7 (Review, Specs, $0.00) model. Although the same gamut of manual controls are available via the touch screen interface the Sony HDR-UX20 lacks the Cam Control found on previous Sony models and other models in this year's lineup. As a result, the AE Shift and WB Shift features from last year have been dropped entirely. You’ll still find regular, old exposure and white balance controls in touch screen menu.
This means you will have to make any manual adjustments via the touch screen interface. There's a good selection of manual controls, including focus, exposure and white balance. It’s annoying that the touch screen interface is slower than the Cam Control. Also, for some adjustments like focus, smudges on the screen can make it difficult to see the subject clearly. Throw in the fact that the Sony HDR-UX20's LCD display is still a small 2.7-inches and it just makes for a frustrating manual control experience.
Zoom
The Sony HDR-UX20 ups the ante in terms of zoom by increasing the optical zoom to 15x versus last year's Sony HDR-UX7 that had a 10x optical zoom. That they were able to achieve this by shrinking the CMOS down to 1/5-inch concerns us some, but we've covered that in more depth in the performance section of the review. The zoom toggle sits atop the DVD case on the right side in perfect position for your finger. Like most Sony zoom toggles, it provides very fine control and with ridged top gives you a solid grip. You can also zoom with two buttons located to the left of the LCD screen when it's folded out, although these don't give you the same fine control as the zoom toggle.
Focus
As we mentioned above, the loss of the Cam Control on the Sony HDR-UX20 means you will have to use the menu system to make manual adjustments. This means that focus can only be adjusted via the LCD touch screen (found on the first tab of the Camera Menu). When engaged, a plus sign button and minus sign button appear onscreen. You simply tap until the picture looks to be in focus. The problems that invariably occur with this particular Sony system have yet to be solved. First, the LCD is small of a low resolution, and it’s small, making the “eyeball” method of focusing largely guesswork. Secondly, the screen will inevitably get smudged, further degrading the appearance. This is the manual control that is most effected by the loss of the Cam Control dial.
Exposure (Aperture)
Manual exposure controls are also found in the Camera Menu under the second tab. You have a choice from AE shift, Scene Select and Spot Metering. Unfortunately Exposure adjustments are very opaque, meaning you don't have precise control over iris and shutter, instead both are changed depending on the adjustments you make. There are thirty-two stops available for exposure controls. There is also a spot metering option where you can tap on the screen to adjust exposure automatically based on that selection. Once again you’ll have to use the menu system as there isn’t a Cam Control.
Shutter Speed
The Sony HDR-UX20 lacks any manual shutter speed controls. There is Color Slow Shutter, a one-touch auto control that grants the camcorder permission to drop the shutter below 1/60 when deemed appropriate to get better color in low light situations. Unfortunately, this can cause the shutter to get too slow and often leads to motion blur.
White Balance
Unlike the Sony HDR-UX7 where you could make adjustments in White Balance Shift using the Cam Control you'll have to look in the menu to make these adjustments on the Sony HDR-UX20. Pre-sets include Manual, Auto, Indoor, and Outdoor. Making a manual adjustment is simple and direct, and takes the camcorder no more than a couple of seconds. The lighting on the show floor, particularly in the Sony booth, is about as challenging as it can get for auto white balance. The HDR-UX20 held up reasonably well. We got a chance to take one for a stroll to some more forgiving locations and the UX20 proved to be as adept in its manual white balance adjustment as any HD Sony.
Gain
There are no manual gain controls on the Sony HDR-UX20.
Other Manual Controls
Face Detection - Face detection is a major new feature on Sony camcorders this year. According to Sony the face detection software will be able to track up to eight different faces at a time, although our experience on the show floor showed that it had difficulty tracking any more than four faces. We actually lined up eight people to see how many it could handle and with all eight people in the shot we were able to recognize just one face. When we zoomed in further on a group we were able to get three or four faces recognized at one time. Recognized faces are enclosed in square white boxes that jump about as new faces come into the scene. Sony also tells us that they have a new bit allocation feature to increase detail in faces. The playback functionality is also present in playback mode. Read more about in Playback.
Zebra Stripes - This feature is called Zebra Stripes because when activated it will indicate areas of the scene that are overexposed by highlighting them with stripes. This allows you to make adjustments to exposure with visual feedback. You can set the sensitivity of the Zebra Stripes to 70 IRE or 100 IRE or turn it off, all in the last tab of the Camera Menu.
Guide Frames - These allow you to better line up your shots by placing a grid of white lines on the screen that split it into nine sectors. You can turn this feature on or off in the last tab of the Camera Menu.
Tele Macro - Used when you need to shoot close up, this feature will focus on the subject but leave the background unfocused so your subject stand out more.
x.v. Color - x.v.Color is Sony’s branding term for the xvYCC color gamut, an emerging system of reproducing more accurate color in recording and playback. It offers 1.8 times the viewable colors of traditional video color. The number of monitors that can actually play back Sony’s version of xvYCC is limited, but this feature could be a small measure of future-proofing your video if the new gamut takes its expected leap into prominence.