Sony DCR-PC120BT Camcorder Review

The DCR-PC120BT has a 1.5 MegaPixel CCD, with 970K active pixels for video and 1390K active pixels for stills. The camcorder has a horizontal resolution of 530 lines. The lens is a Carl Zeiss 10x optical 120x digital zoom. The camcorder has a manual focus ring which gives great control of the focus. The lens diameter is 37 mm. The camcorder has S-Video in/out and mini-jack composite RCA in/out plus 4 pin Firewire (Sony calls is i.Link) for transferring video from your camcorder to your computer and back from your computer to your camcorder. The camcorder includes a Control-L Lanc port for an external edit controller or zoom controller. The camcorder has both a headphone and microphone 1/8 in. miniplug for audio monitoring and input respectively.

The camcorder is matchbox style, meaning it's horizontal. The tape loading mechanism is located on the bottom of the camcorder which is a mistake Sony has been making with some of their models for a long time. By putting the tape mechanism on the bottom of the camcorder, you can't change tapes while the camcorder is on a tripod, and it's just awkward overall to change the tape. On the top of the camcorder is a pop-up flash for stills, the zoom rocker and the microphone. A difficulty with matchbox style camcorders is microphone placement. If you place it on the top it doesn't pick up sound very well yet picks up operator noise and is likely to be touched by your hands while operating the camcorder. If you place it in front you're even more likely to touch the microphone. I think that the best solution is a microphone on the left side of the camcorder going from top to bottom that could swing up and extend out from the top. A microphone that extended out would pick up great sound and not have any of the problems of over microphone placement on matchbox camcorders. Plus, by making it fold up and down the camcorder can operate or store in a more compact form.

On the left side of the camcorder is a 2.5 in. LCD screen, and located below that is the battery slot. In front of the battery slot is the Bluetooth wireless card, more about that later. The LCD screen folds out to reveal the VCR control and Memory Stick control buttons. In the back of the camcorder is a Memory Stick slot, the power button for switching between recording, playback and Memory Stick modes. Also located on the back is a four way touch pad and the color viewfinder.

The DCR-PC120BT includes a manual focus ring like many of the Sony digital camcorders which allows for very easy adjustment of the focus. The camcorder also has manual exposure control along with auto exposure modes. The camcorder also includes manual white balance with the ability to put it on full auto. The camcorder lacks true manual shutter speed, although the shutter speed can be adjusted in conjunction with the exposure using the pre-programmed auto exposure modes, but I've never liked pre programmed auto exposure modes very much. I really wish Sony would start putting manual shutter speed control on their camcorders like Canon. The picture is really sharp and looks great, although I wouldn't say it is noticeably different than the PC110.

The 1.5 MegaPixel CCD on the camcorder is mostly for digital stills, which the camcorder does really well. The PC120BT takes 1360 x 1020 still images and saves them to Memory Stick, whereas the PC110 could only take 1152 x 864, not really a huge improvement. The camcorder includes a 8MB Memory Stick. The stills look really sharp and are some of the best stills that any digital camcorder produces.

In addition, you can save 60 seconds of pretty poor quality, 160 x 112 resolution MPEG video to the Memory Stick or you can store up to 15 seconds of 320 x 240 resolution MPEG video. Sony makes up to 128 MB memory sticks currently so you could save in my estimation up to 32 minutes of 160 x 112 resolution or 8 minutes of 320 x 240 resolution MPEG video on one stick. You can transfer the movies and the stills to your computer using a supplied USB cable, but it does not allow you to transfer video from your tape to your computer

The camcorder includes wireless Bluetooth connectivity, just like the MicroMV DCR-IP7. In fact, the DCR-PC120 has the same Bluetooth functions as the DCR-IP7. Bluetooth allows the camcorder to wirelessly connect to another Bluetooth enabled device within 30 feet. Specifically, Bluetooth is used in the DCR-PC120BT to connect either to Bluetooth enabled cell phones or to a normal, land line telephone using the included Bluetooth adapter. The established connection allows you to use your camcorder for communication.

The camcorder includes three "network features". The first is email. You can send a receive emails with both MPEG video attachments (from the Memory Stick) or still image attachments. Using Sony's online Imagestation web site, you can upload your images to your own personal album web site hosted by Sony. The camcorder can also surf the web, by viewing web pages designed for personal digital assistants and web enabled cell phones. You can connect to the web by either using Sony's service or your own ISP. These communication features are hard to use and seem somewhat impractical. It might be nice for some users to be able to email your images to friends, however it is very hard to compose emails with the camcorder.

The camcorder has Sony's Low Lux NightShot feature to shoot mono-color green video in almost total darkness. The DCR-PC120BT has electronic image stabilization to help you keep your shots stable. Often shaky video is a problem with matchbox camcorder but the PC120BT handles very well.

The Sony DCR-PC120BT MiniDV camcorder is really great, but the upgrades make it look like Sony is desperate. After really maxing out the video quality with the PC110, Sony has resorted to upgrading the digital still capability and adding Bluetooth. The digital still capability on the camcorder is great however, and although I have been reluctant to really accept the convergence of digital still camcorder and video camera, the PC120BT really does an amazing job of taking digital stills. The picture quality is great and the camcorder has a ton of great features and manual control that will let you shoot great video. The Bluetooth features, although cool and gimmicky, really don't seem very useful unless you're a reporter on the road who needs to send in pictures from the scene. Regardless of the useless Bluetooth, the DCR-PC120BT is a great camcorder and if you can afford it it's a great choice. However, I wouldn't recommend upgrading from the DCR-PC110, because the upgrades aren't significant enough.