Digital 8 Camcorders Digital8Camcorders.com is your one-stop source for information about digital 8 camcorders.

1. 

   F. T. Zvovushe
   May 8th, 2010 - 14:59

   Are they nuts??? I can’t believe this camera has no Firewire. Don’t bother!
   Rating: 1 / 5
2. 

   jk
   May 8th, 2010 - 17:06

   For what it’s worth, the DCR-SR40 works with my MacBook Pro. After connecting the camera with USB 2, it shows up as a mass storage device with mpeg2 files. There’s a nice shareware app called ffmpegX that can import into a number of formats, including regular dv with audio. Quicktime can’t play mpeg2 by default, but you can buy the codec from Apple (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/). It seems to have a problem with muxed, audio, though, so it isn’t really a complete solution.
   Rating: 4 / 5
3. 

   April Roth
   May 8th, 2010 - 17:49

   This was a gift from my husband to record and photograph our trip to Disney. I am horrified at the video and especially the picture quality. I cannot believe this thing is on the market. Shame on Sony.
   Rating: 1 / 5
4. 

   Greek Woman
   May 8th, 2010 - 20:09

   I bought this product shortly after my daughter’s birth to capture her precious moments. It is lightweight, and easy to use. The handycam has some cool features and the online user guide is certainly user-friendly. I was able to easily burn a dvd and even create a dvd menu.

   The camera feature is useless. The photos come out terrible, and also very blurry, especially if the object is moving.

   The quality of the picture is very good during the day, but at night the backlight feature does look a bit artificial.

   Overall, a good camera for the price.
   Rating: 4 / 5
5. 

   Mac4Life
   May 8th, 2010 - 22:16

   I don’t write many reviews for products I’ve purchased, but the Sony DCR-SR40 warrants some (more) bad publicity. The following words need to be plastered on the side of the box: Sony does not provide Mac-compatible software. The lack of Mac support is quite sad. For those unknowing, all HDD (hard disk drive) camcorders record their video on a hard drive in MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is not a file type that a PC or a Mac can understand or playback; therefore, some sort of software has to translate the MPEG-2 file into a file the computer can understand (like MPEG-4 or Quicktime movie). Why Sony did not make the camcorder to record in MPEG-4 directly I’ll never understand. The software included in the box is not compatible with the Mac. I called Sony and talked with 5 different people, one of which was a tech support person. As it turns out, Sony forces the camcorder to record in a format that is unreadable by computers (MPEG-2), and then does not provide software to make the format readable to a Mac user. I HAVE TO PAY EXTRA TO GET MY VIDEO OFF THE CAMCORDER AND ONTO MY MAC. Granted, I can buy software (Sony recommends software that costs an extra $60!), but why should I have to pay a ransom of 60 bucks to get my videos off my camcorder and be able to use them. The beauty of the Mac is that I have iMovie to edit my videos. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that any Mac users out there (and I’m sure there are many of us) quickly pass this camcorder by. Wait until a Mac friendly company like Canon comes out with a HDD camcorder. Oh, and never, ever, ever buy a Sony product. Their tech support is terrible, and they try to give you the runaround. The video on the camcorder looks to be pretty good (hence, the 2 stars), but I can’t really tell yet since it’s stuck like a prisoner on the camcorder.
   Rating: 2 / 5

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