Sony HDR-CX500V

Compression (8.75)

Like most consumer HD camcorders, the Sony HDR-CX500V uses AVCHD compression, which is built on the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec. The unique thing about Sony is that it offers standard definition MPEG-2 recording options as well as high definition settings. Many manufacturers—including Canon, Panasonic, and JVC—lack standard definition recording options on their products. The standard definition recording option can be very useful for people who aren’t quite ready to do all their shooting in HD. When shooting standard definition video you can set the camcorder to use a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio.

The HDR-CX500V has lots of quality options for recording HD and SD video. Many have noted the fact that Sony tops out with a 16Mbps bitrate for HD video, which is quite a bit lower than the 24Mbps offered by Canon and JVC (24Mbps is the maximum bitrate allowed with AVCHD). Does the lower bitrate on the Sonys make a difference? Probably, but we don’t think it is as significant as lens quality, sensor size, and processing. Last year, when we compared the Canon HF11 (24Mbps) with the Canon HF10 (16Mbps) and we were hard struck to notice a difference in video quality between the two. Read more about the advantages and disadvantages of various high definition compression types.

Media (8.52)

The Sony HDR-CX500V is loaded with 32GB of internal flash memory as well as a Memory Stick PRO Duo card slot. You can store quite a bit of video on the internal memory (3 hours and 45 minutes at the highest quality setting), but the memory card slot is good to have if you fill up the internal 32GB. If you want to switch between recording to memory card or internal memory you have to do so in the camcorder’s menu system—the CX500V won’t switch over automatically if one of them fills up.

32GB is a decent amount of internal memory for a camcorder, although there are some models out there that contain 64GB of internal memory (like the CX500V’s sister model, the Sony HDR-CX520V). We don’t like the fact that Sony uses a proprietary memory card format—the Memory Stick PRO Duo cards. These memory cards only work with Sony products and the CX500V is not compatible with regular SD/SDHC cards. So, if you don’t have any Memory Stick PRO Duo cards lying around, you should probably invest in a few before you purchase a Sony camcorder. Read more about the advantages and disadvantages of various media types.

Still Features (10.38)

The Sony HDR-CX500V doesn’t have a huge set of still features, but it does have some basic ones. The camcorder touts a 12-megapixel still image capability, but its top native resolution is around 6.2 megapixels. This means the two highest image size options (4000 × 3000 and 4000 × 2250) are interpolated from a 2880 × 2160 image. A 6.2-megapixel capability is still quite good, although it is not as large as the native resolution you’d get even from a cheap digital camera. There are also numerous HD camcorders out there at offer native 8-megapixel and 9-megapixel still image resolution options (like the Canon HF S11, JVC GZ-HM400, and Sanyo VPC-HD2000).

The CX500V does have a built-in flash located just above the lens. The flash has a variety of settings including redeye-reduction and three brightness intensity options. The camcorder also has a 10-second self timer and 5 different photo size options in still image mode. You can capture still photos in video mode, but the images are limited to a 3840 × 2160 (8.2 megapixels) resolution when you’re shooting HD video.

One of the more unique features on the HDR-CX500V is its Smile Shutter technology. The Smile Shutter will automatically snap a photo—even while video is recording—when a smile is detected within the frame. The feature actually works quite well at detecting smiles and you can even set the detection sensitivity to low, medium, or high. All of these ‘Smile’ features are only available if Face Detection is also activated on the camcorder.

There’s nothing incredibly special about the photo playback setup on the HDR-CX500V. Still photos are arranged as small thumbnails and can be viewed in full-screen or output to a television via any of the camcorder’s video-out terminals. You can also run slideshows on the CX500V and display photo data (like aperture and shutter speed) for a selected still image. The camcorder’s GPS system can tag the locations of photos as well as videos.

The HDR-CX500V did quite well on our still color accuracy test. In fact, it did better with color accuracy here than it did in our video color testing. The CX500V managed a color error of 2.8 with a saturation level of 101.9%. These are both excellent scores, and it bodes well for the CX500V’s overall still image performance.

All of the camcorders in this set had very good color accuracy in their still images. The Panasonic HDC-TM300 (2.65 color error) produced the most accurate colors, although its numbers weren’t that much better than the Sony. The JVC GZ-HM400 came in third (3.08 color error), followed by the Canon HF S11 (3.87 color error). Each of these camcorders captures a detailed still image with solid colors. The Canon did appear to overexpose the image a bit, while the JVC did the opposite and underexposed its still image.

The noise levels on the Sony HDR-CX500V’s still photos were okay, but they weren’t anything spectacular. The camcorder averaged 0.87% noise in our still noise testing, which is less noise than the Canon HF S11 and JVC GZ-HM400 measured in the same test. Still, this is more noise than the CX500V measured in our bright light video recording, so we expected better from the camcorder.

Still sharpness is probably the most important of our still image testing because it gives you an idea of how much fine detail its photos are able to capture. In our testing, the Sony HDR-CX500V managed a horizontal sharpness of 1914 with 7.8% undersharpening and a vertical sharpness of 1676 with 10.6% undersharpening. These scores aren’t bad, but they are a far cry from the 12-megapixel resolution (4000 × 3000 image size) Sony touts the camcorder as having. In reality, the camcorder has an effective pixel count of around 6 megapixels for still photos, which we talked about earlier in the Still Features section of this review. For a 6-megapixel camcorder, the CX500V’s sharpness scores aren’t bad. They are better than the Panasonic HDC-TM300 was capable of, although the Canon HF S11 and JVC GZ-HM400—both of which have higher pixel counts—did better in this test.