Sony Webbie HD MHS-CM1 Camcorder Review

Motion & Resolution Performance Summary
• Motion is good enough for YouTube, but nothing you can compare to fully featured consumer camcorders • Considerable motion trailing and some stuttering • Resolution is leaps and bounds above the competition; Sony probably just stuck a still camera sensor in the CM1, which means the processor won't keep up, but the resolution for still life shots is impressive
	Color & Noise Performance	(Page 4 of 17)	Low Light Performance

Motion (4.66)

The Sony MHS-CM1 records HD video in just a single frame rate: 30P. There isn't usually much flexibility in how these low budget camcorders record, so the one-frame-rate-option doesn't feel like much of a constraint. Fortunately, the CM1 does well with what you're given. (More on how we test motion.)

Motion is, unsurprisingly, a bit choppy and there's considerable motion trailing in the areas of high contrast—like the color pinwheel and the red train stripes in the video above. The results appeared to be about on par with the high definition offering from Pure Digital, the Flip Mino HD. Motion was definitely superior to the Kodak Zi6, which showed a lot more compression artifacting.

Video Resolution (11.66)

Resolution on the MHS-CM1 was far superior to what we saw on the competition. In fact, the CM1's resolution was good enough to compete with the best of the high definition consumer camcorders from any manufacturer. The CM1 captured a horizontal resolution of approximately 700 lw/ph and a vertical resolution of 800 lw/ph. This is a great performance for any camcorder. As we get more 2009 camcorders into our lab, we doubt there will be many models consistently outperforming the CM1 in resolution. (More on how we test video resolution.)

Video Resolution Score Comparisons

* Scores for these models were recalculated using the new 2009-2010 rubric.