Last Updated February 22, 2009   Product Rating   Large 60GB hard drive Large touch-screen LCD Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound   Editing on a Windows PC requires additional software

Sony is the gorilla in the room when it comes to digital camcorders, especially in the high definition world. The all new Sony HDR-SR11 HD Handycam is one of their most advanced HD-digital camcorders yet. It has a built-in 60GB hard drive, a touch screen LCD display, 5.1 Dolby Digital sound recording, and automatic face detection. For its pricey price tag of $750-$1000, it's definitely a digital camcorder for those who are professionals or someone needing excellent quality audio and video.

First off, the design of the Sony HDR-SR11 HD Handycam is very well designed and fits in your hand nicely and comfortably. It measures 3.4 x 3 x 5.5-inches and weighs about a pound and a half, making it not the lightest camcorder out there, but that's due to its power and specs. All of the controls for the camcorder are very well placed and designed with the consumer in mind. All of the major controls are accessible with either your index finger or thumb. There is also a 3.2-inch LCD on the left side of the camcorder that is actually a touch screen, which is really unique and houses a lot of useful features in itself.

The user interface of the Sony HDR-SR11 HD Handycam is nicely designed, just like the physical body of the camcorder. The touch screen menus are easy to navigate and everything it very responsive when pressed. The menu options are well-spaced out on the screen, partly in thanks to the large 3.2-inch size of the screen. This means that practically any sized finger can easily press the buttons on the screen with ease. There is an optical viewfinder you can use in lieu of the LCD screen if you desire as well.

The video that is captured by the HDR-SR11 is in interlaced 1920x1080 high-definition resolution at the standard 60 frames per second. The lens has a 12x zoom, which is a little more powerful compared to similar camcorders out there on the market today. The camcorder features many different shooting modes and features that allow you to have full control of your shooting experience. The nightshot mode is worth mentioning in this review because it works surprisingly good and looks similar to what nightvision goggles do. Video is directly recorded onto the camcorder's built in 60GB hard drive, which according to Sony, can hold around 7 hours of HD video recorded at the camcorder's highest quality setting. This is a very large storage capacity and certainly puts it above the rest when it comes to on-board storage capacity. There's also a 10.2-megapixel camera as well and those images are saved to a Memory Stick Pro card in the device. Both video and picture is captured using the on-broad CMOS sensor, giving you better quality over 3CCD camcorders.

The video is saved in AVCHD format, which is not friendly out of the box for Windows users. Windows Movie Maker, the default video editing software that comes with Windows Vista/XP, isn't compatible with AVCHD format. To edit this camcorder's video on a Windows PC, you'll have to use third-party video editing software, such as Adobe Premier Pro CS4, Pinnacle Studio Plus 12.1, or Adobe Premier Elements 7. If you want to edit this video on a Mac, you can use iMovie 08 or opt for the more advanced Apple Final Cut Express 4/Pro 6.0.1. If you have to purchase additional software like the ones mentioned above to edit the video from this device, make sure you factor the cost of that into the price of this camcorder.

The audio quality of the Sony HDR-SR11 HD Handycam is of very high quality and is captured in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Most other cameras that are similar to this one do not offer as high quality sound capture as this one does. The built-in microphone works pretty well in most environments, but Sony also offers an input for an external microphone setup.

The features of the HDR-SR11 in terms of video and audio quality work very nicely together to give you the best quality possible. The automatic face detection technology detects the faces of humans and displays a blue-box around the face and puts the focal point on their faces to ensure the shot is clear. The camcorder also quickly adjusts to varying shooting conditions, including extreme light and dark and correctly compensates for the conditions to shoot the best video or picture possible.