Only the top half of the screen is available for framing shots; the bottom displays information like video and photo resolutions, remaining storage amounts for photos and video, and the time of day. The full screen is used when viewing your recordings, though. A slider on the bottom pushes out the PM5's built-in USB connector from behind a door on the right side. The sole AV connector is here as well.
A door on the left side hides a memory card slot and the removable lithium ion rechargeable battery. The battery gets charged in camera via USB. The positioning of the USB connector might be a bit tricky to use for some computers, but Sony includes a short extension cable.
The PM5's shooting features are above bare bones but below well equipped. It's pretty much an automatic point-and-shoot video camera, so you don't get a lot of options to tweak and experiment with. Nonetheless, you do get four video resolution options, electronic image stabilization, face detection, fluorescent-light flicker reduction, and a self-timer.
The video resolutions include 1,x1, pixels, 1,x pixels, and x pixels at 30 frames per second progressive and a 1,xpixel mode at 60fps progressive. Continuous shooting is possible for approximately 29 minutes. This Bloggie's input and output offerings are anemic. You get the aforementioned USB connector for use with a computer and some HDTVs and a proprietary multiconnector output for composite and component video out to a monitor or TV. A composite cable is included, so you'll have to pay for a component cable if you want to connect to an HDTV.
There are no mic or headphone jacks, either, and the built-in mic is mono only. Overall, video quality is very good for its class. Like most pocket camcorders, there are visible blocky artifacts and trailing with moving subjects. Shooting indoors or in low-light conditions will result in quite a bit of noise, though that's typical of these little devices, too.
Photo quality is on par with a good camera phone; it'll do if you just want a quick snapshot, but it won't replace a digital camera.
The shutter lag feels fairly long, too, so don't plan on using it for moving subjects. Lastly, because of the placement of the shutter release high on the right side and how light the PM5 is, it can be difficult to get a blur-free photo shooting one-handed.
To help, take advantage of the 2-second timer, which lets you hit the shutter release and then concentrate on keeping the PM5 stable. With pocket video cameras, easily sharing the video is equally as important as shooting it; this is where the PM5 mostly falters. Sony unfortunately uses two versions of its Picture Motion Browser software for organizing and sharing: a Portable basic version embedded on the device Windows and Mac and a full-featured version that comes on an included CD Windows only.
The problem is that the Portable version lacks too much, like the capability to e-mail clips, trim video, and extract still frames, whereas the full version is sort of an unnecessarily bloated mess. Both versions do allow for one-touch uploads to YouTube, DailyMotion, Picasa, PhotoBucket, and Shutterfly, however, so long as you've stored your username and password for each service.
The software isn't compatible with Windows 7 Starter Edition, bit Windows 7, or OS X, though as always you can drag and drop the files and edit using another package, like iMovie. But you'll likely get confused when you plug the camcorder into your system for file dragging.
Because it's got internal memory only 26MB, though and virtually two card slots, it mounts three different drives onto your system, forcing you to click through each one looking for your files. Two of them have identical file structures--the SD card and Memory Stick--but if you, for example, recorded to SD the "drive," the Memory Stick will simply look like it's got empty directories. This isn't a deal-killer--once you've figured it out it's just an annoyance--but it's not terribly user-friendly.
Pop it on and the Bloggie instantly enters a mode that records at 1,x pixels at 30p only; stills can be taken at 5 megapixels. The lens is basically a dome with a round mirror in it, but the only way to get it currently is in this bundle.
The recorded result with the lens is a doughnut-shaped video that looks cool, but the quality isn't great. It's fun and suitable for Web sharing and that's really all that should be expected.
Sony outfitted the Bloggie with a sharp K-dot 2. Inexplicably, however, you can't use the entire screen to frame your shots while recording video—only the top half of the LCD about 1. When the camera is in playback mode, however, images span the full screen.
Other options include a bypixel mode at 60fps p60 for smoother motion. Sharing photos and video captured with the Bloggie is dead simple. Like many of its competitors, the camera includes an integrated connector that slides out and plugs right into your computer's USB port.
When plugged in, the Bloggie's removable lithium battery charges. In a perfect world, every consumer-electronics device would be built like this, so you'd never need a USB cable, or a separate battery charger. The Bloggie ships with software for managing photos and videos, but you probably won't even need it. Once the device is connected to your PC, its memory card appears as an external drive, allowing you to simply drag and drop media into folders on your computer.
It's helpful for beginners, but it's probably not necessary if you're comfortable importing the media to your computer and uploading it to video-sharing sites yourself.
The Bloggie also lacks a microphone input; in my tests, audio sounded just fine, but other devices, including the Kodak Zi8 let you add an external microphone to improve audio capture. More Digital Camcorder Reviews:. Excellent 4. Pros Low price. Sharp video and 5-megapixel still images.
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