Labs

Like JVC, Sony has fitted a 30GB disk inside its hard disk camcorder, giving around seven hours of video storage at the highest quality setting. You can drag and drop the files to your PC and play them in Windows Media Player. After installing the supplied software on your PC you can use the DVD Burn button on the camcorder. This automatically sends all new files to your PC and burns them to a disc.

Like all Sony camcorders, the DCR-SR90E has a touch-screen display for browsing thumbnails, playing clips and accessing menu functions. The powered accessory shoe on top of the device works only with Sony accessories.

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four-way microphone captures surround sound, which is encoded to Dolby Digital 5.1. This makes little difference in practice, as the effect is minimal. The lens cover is automatic, and there's a flash for taking still photographs.

PERFORMANCE

This camcorder uses the same lens and 1/3in CCD sensor as the company's DCR-HC96E. It produces higher-quality video than every other DVD and HDD camcorder here. Colours are vibrant yet realistic, the edges of objects are sharp and results are excellent even in low light.

However, like all the devices that record in MPEG2 format, the DCR-SR90E's videos suffer from compression artefacts. This is particularly noticeable during fast action and panning shots. We also noticed that this camcorder and the DCR-HC96E have lenses with a marginally narrower angle than the others. It takes good still photos, though, which you can save to Memory Stick or the hard disk. The battery on the back lasted for just over two hours.

VERDICT

This excellent camcorder provides high-quality video capture with the convenience of a hard disk. However, the DCR-HC96E produces even better video and costs £180 less.