|
Sony TG3 High Definition Digital Camcorder | 
 enlarge
| Brand: Sony
Category: CE
Buy New: £416.98
New (24) from £416.98
Rating:  24 reviews
Media: Electronics
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 11.4 x 7.9 x 3.3
MPN: HDRTG3E.CEH
Model: HDRTG3E.CEH
EAN: 4905524501537
ASIN: B0017HELYQ
Release Date: April 6, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
| |
| |
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk
"Pack up your troubles in your old camera kit bag, because Sony have produced the HD TG3E Handycam - the world's smallest, lightest, slimmest camcorder. Visually Sony's new toy is stunning too." The News of the World - 13th April 2008 "Sony's latest camcorder is the smallest and lightest on the market to capture video at the highest of HD resolutions." The Sunday Times - 13th April 2008 "In a few day's from now, you can buy the smallest, lightest high definition camcorder in the world, the Sony HDR-TG3E." The Daily Telegraph - 12th April 2008
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Fabulous picture quality May 31, 2008
M. Haslam (UK)
61 out of 63 found this review helpful
First of all, can I say I disagree with the person below that suggests buying a tape-based camcorder is the way to go. More or less everyone agrees that tape as a format is on its way out, and I would definitely avoid it. And apart from anything else, tapes are not as flexibe (being sequential devices) nor reliable etc. A bad idea really that served their purpose in the 20th century, but things are progressing and they will be gone soon. Even the professional HD gear is moving away from tapes.
Now, on to my comments on the HDR-TG3: There's a lot to like about this camcorder. First and foremost, it produces really tremendous image quality. Yes, its small and neat and well built, but its the wow-factor of the video footage that impresses the most. Anyone used to camcorders based on vhs, or s-vhs, or Sony 8mm or Hi-8 or even DVD based, will find the video quality totally stunning... because it is. The amount of detail being resolved is just amazing and viewed on a full HD TV or a computer monitor at 1920x1200, the footage looks incredible.
Outdoors, colours are bright and vivid, free from noise and the focus is fast and accurate. Even indoors in low light, the footage is surprisingly good and although the noise levels are increased, its really pretty impressive. As someone else commented, the sound is just fabulous too, especially with no motor noise whining away in the background.
However, there are some issues or disappointments which if they were otherwise would have made this a better camcorder, imho. From the ergonomics point of view, I have no problem with the touch screen, nor with the zoom control, but I do find the on/off button to be in a daft place and I tend to end up opening the battery/memory stick door when trying to turn the thing off.
It would have been nice to see 720p recording supported and indeed 24p or 25p formats too, none of which are present. But I guess with 1080 lines, interlacing artefacts are less obtrusive so its not too much of a problem. (Certainly that's what Sky seem to have concluded too, given they have chosen to broadcast everything HD at 1080i even though they originally planned to use 720p for sport.)
I would also have liked video-inputs on the camcorder as well as outputs and an HDMI cable included would have been sensible, given that they provide every other cable you might conceivably need, but not the one you actually want! And a case would heve been more generous. I can't imagine anyone will want to travel with this camcorder without any sort of case.
Finally, the Sony software provided is fairly useless, but that's to be expected. It works OK, its just that it doesn't do much (anything?) useful.
But at the end of the day none of the above matters. People interested in buying this camcorder are surely after a small, compact device that produces great video quality. The HDR-TG3E delivers that in spades.
SO EASY TO USE May 21, 2008
Mr. D. Ixer (Barnsley, UK)
49 out of 49 found this review helpful
This camera is a delight to use and excellent quality. Very user friendly and the touch screen is great.
Sound quality is second to none. Picture superb. Build quality excellent.
Set up is so easy. Insert battery and memory card. Charge battery and your off.
Saves individual recordings into events so you can access very easily.
Comes with lots of cables for connecting to tv/computer and nice base station for charging/transferring info to computer.
Works like a dream on an Intel iMac with imovie.
This is my first camcorder and I'm delighted I made the decision to buy it.
 When size is important May 28, 2008
Mr. D. J. Wilson (West Sussex, UK)
24 out of 29 found this review helpful
If you have never seen the output of a High Def camcorder you'll think this camera is amazing but if you have you'll be left thinking, well at least it's small.
The camera is quite heavy in the hand considering it's made of one of the lightest metals there is. The zoom control is poor and is easy to get wrong. The camera is so small holding it steady is difficult. Focus tends to hunt in low light and although it has "face detection" it's not very impressive if the end result is an out of focus video. Most of the time it's fine but going out of focus in High Def looks really bad.
White balance is hit and miss and its better to set it manually to "Outdoors" or "Indoors". Stills are very average, little better than the best mobile phones can produce.
So why four stars? Well at the end of the day this is the perfect camera for most people. Small enough not leave at home and with the ability to produce what the average person will think is wonderful video.
If you can live with a bit larger camcorder and want real High Def go for a HDV model with tapes. Tapes are cheap and the bit rate used to record the video is far higher so allowing for more detail video and less blur when panning the camera. A larger camera is easier to hold steady and the end results will be far more impressive.
 Camera is ok, but AVCHD is a letdown (at least on a Mac)! August 20, 2008
Mr. B. Kott (london, uk)
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
This is my first videocamera and I bought it after reading many positive reviews. I wanted to have something small and easy to operate. from the other reviews, it also seemed to work well on a (new) Mac which was one of my worries.
After using it for several weeks, I can say I overall like the camera itself. The video quality is good, even in low light (yes it's grainy and all, as happens with videocams in this class, but you can still make out a lot on the video, even in very bad light).
I haven't used the photo function that much but the quality of the photos I took so far was *not* outstanding. It won't replace a modern compact camera. A (minor) issue is that - this being a Sony - it uses memory sticks, which are still significantly more expensive than SD cards.
The BIG issue I have with this product is the format it uses to encode video, namely AVCHD. Hailed by Sony and Panasonic as the latest and greatest in video encoding, it is a total letdown when it comes to practicality. At least on the Mac (MacBookPro with Intel DualCore etc), there currently seems to be no good way to watch AVCHD files natively. Two years after the first camera based on this format was launched by Sony, AVCHD is still not read by Quicktime or any other free player (some rumours about a certain nightly build of VLC that is supposed to play AVCHD without crashing notwithstanding...). In fact, the only solution seems to be Roxio's Toast software. Hence, users who want to simply transfer and watch *AVCHD* files on the Mac, while maintaining the small size of the files, need to factor that cost in (around $99).
And yes, iMovie '08 will *import* AVCHD files, but it converts them into the Apple Intermediate Codec (which can then be edited; AVCHD itself is not an editable codec it seems). However this process takes ages - even on a very advanced system - and bloats the file size by an order of magnitude between 5 and 10 times. Hence, on my previously 100 Gig free HD I am running low on space after importing one hour of video footage. And I just want to watch most it without editing it.
Not exactly sure how this all works out on a PC, but I think Sony's software is crap as stated previously.
All in all I wonder what the advantage of AVCHD is, maybe it compresses files 10% (?) better than MPEG4/H.264, but at least on a Mac it's not a practical format for the time being. I should have got the Sanyo Xacti 1000 instead, there I could watch the files via drag & drop....
Small in size but big on performance June 13, 2008
Christopher W. Brierley
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
The Good:world's smallest full HD camcorder,fits easily in shirt/trouser pocket,easy to operate even if left handed,works well even in low light,well made.Excellent auto focus and superb lens.Lots of manual settings.
The Bad:quite expensive,case and HDMI lead not supplied,no mic or earphone jacks,no shoe,a bit heavy for its size and ugly to my eyes,uses expensive sony memory cards.
If you want a really small camcorder that shoots excellent video and quite good stills under almost any conditions then look no further as this camcorder out performs any similar/slightly larger size from Sanyo or Panasonic.This is especially so under low level lighting,eg. in bars ,restaurents or clubs.Even though video noise increases it is never too serious and the auto focus still locks on.A Panasonic sd9 or other camcorders in the same range are very poor under these low light conditions with serious video noise and a Sanyo will suffer from a hunting auto focus.The touch sensitive screen is easy to use and there are a large number of manual settings should you need them.However if point and shoot is what you want this camcorder copes superbly under all conditions.I actually give it 4.5 stars.Do not hesitate buy one you will not regret it.
|
|
|
|
www.ebay.co.uk
Copyright Thalasar Ventures
| |
