Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

3D - HDR-TD10 (2011).
Professional models - HXR-NX70 (2011). HXR-MC2000, HXR-MC50 (2010).
Flash Memory / consumer - HDR-CX260V, HDR-CX580V, HDR-CX740VE, HDR-CX760V (2012). HDR-CX360V, HDR-CX560V, HDR-CX700V (2011). HDR-CX110, HDR-CX150, HDR-CX300, HDR-CX350V, HDR-CX550V (2010). HDR-CX100 (2009). HDR-CX12 (2008). HDR-CX7 (2007).
Hard Disk / consumer - HDR-XR260V (2012). HDR-XR150, HDR-XR350V, HDR-XR550V (2010). HDR-XR100, HDR-XR200, HDR-XR500, HDR-XR520 (2009). HDR-SR11, HDR-SR12 (2008). HDR-SR5, HDR-SR7 (2007).
acgold7
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by acgold7 »

To be totally honest with you, I'm not sure the MC2000 will give you better results than what you have. What cam were you using? What size chip?

The MC is a small consumer Handycam trapped in a huge body. It is not a Pro cam. You might be better off with a cx 500 or 700 series, which has a bigger chip, or an AX2000, which has more controls.
Adam
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by peter-s-c »

Thanks for the info

Well, I did take the plunge and buy the MC2000 as the form factor was very important to me. Things mentioned in this review, such as low light performance wasn't a big deal. I just needed enough quality and control for respectable web video. I'm selling articles to ezines so I needed better quality than what I had.

It did significantly better than my old cam at handling high contrast The ability to put AE compensation on the ring and the spot meter/focus function on the 'My Menu' list, gives me the control I need to manage the scene. They're also simple enough to use that my often untrained camera persons can manage them. Given a good exposure in a high contrast scene as a starting point, I'm able to manage enough in post production to make me happy.

My only complaint with the camera concerns the menu complexity and a few weird things. I'm still finding functionality in the menu that I wasn't aware of despite having read the manual and running through menu with it. Weird things? Finding my manual exposure turned on when I didn't turn it on, turned it off, then had it come back on afterward. Also having a screen indicator symbol show up on the screen that doesn't appear anywhere in the list of indicators. No idea what it means.

But I did stumble across one handy feature. I have no use for iAuto, but it turns out to be an excellent 'reset' button when you want clear some of your manual settings quickly.

Overall, I'm happy with the camera and the quality, just too bad it doesn't have more control buttons and less menu.
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by peter-s-c »

Here's a simple little video of a recent fly fishing event, produced under what would normally be my typical working conditions. Please excuse the usual Youtube butchery of the quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19PvAgTF ... nQ&index=3
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by acgold7 »

peter-s-c wrote: Please excuse the usual Youtube butchery of the quality.
Not sure what you mean. YouTube now does a very nice job of encoding up to 1080p60 if you do it right. Premiere even has a preset for it.

Nice video.
Adam
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by peter-s-c »

Ya, I'm being a bit harsh. I had some early quality issues with Youtube as it severely downgraded some of my first uploads, so I have a bit of a jaundiced view toward the service. Now using Compressor's Youtube settings and things are better, but there's still a drop off. In the video clip of the guy with the magnifier tying a fly, he's darker in the Youtube version than in the source file I used for Youtube upload. That clip was exposed incorrectly and I should've lightened it up before uploading, but I only had a few hours to knock the video together, so it went up with the mistake and Youtube made it a bit worse.

There were some contrasty scenes in that video that the camera handled much better than my old gear would have, so I'm happy with that.
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Doughie
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by Doughie »

I agree that sometimes the appearance of uploaded video can differ a little from the native file. Exposure and contrast can appear a little different, so sometimes if the delivery-mechanism of your rendered video is primarily upload to a video-sharing site like Youtube, you can render the video file (i tend to render to .MP4 as a general rule) with a little less contrast and maybe a little more exposure.
Obviously though, for any video-streaming site, it massively compresses the uploaded file, that is the nature of these streaming video sites, so there will always be a little more artefacting in extremis than the original file.

I tend to render videos at a bit-rate of around 5000 - 6000kbps for a 720p file. A lot depends on the nature of the video. If it has a lot of subject movement or camera movement, or stuff like water / waves, then I'll up the bitrate that I use when I render the file from my video-editing software. (Sony Vegas).

But yes, Youtube has come a long way for sure.
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by peter-s-c »

Audio quality is the one serious negative that I have run across with the camera. I get a very pronounced hiss with both the shotgun mic and with a wireless one. The hiss is very prominent when the mic level is 'normal' but still is very noticeable with mic level at 'low'.

I import to FCPx minus the empty channel, so it's not that.

If I shoot a video with no mic attached, all we hear is a loud hiss when it should be silent.

Anyone having this issue? Any other camera settings that could affect this?

I can remove the hiss post production, but I rather it not be there to begin with.

Thanks
peter-s-c
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by peter-s-c »

Got this one figured out.

The microphone level has two settings labeled 'Normal' and 'Low'. In effect, this means 'Fixed Level' and 'Auto' respectively. So if you have the microphone level at 'Low' and it's quiet, the gain gets ramped way up and there's lots of hiss.

Bottom line, leave it on 'Normal'.
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Stephan
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by Stephan »

Strange, on my consumer HDR-CX740, I had the same audio noise problem and came to the exact opposite conclusion (Normal = auto, Low = fixed, and leave it to 'Low'...) - Looks like Sony changed their minds on how to name audio level? Interesting!
peter-s-c
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Re: Sony HXR-MC2000 Hands-On Review

Post by peter-s-c »

On my camera, 'Normal' is defined as, "Records surrounding sounds at fixed level". "Low" is defined as, "Records surrounding sounds at actual level."

Does yours have the same definition?

When we were at the store (noisy location) 'Normal' provided the best results, but in my quiet office, 'Low' produced the best results.

My original post was based on the results from the noisy store, but in my quiet office, my results matched yours.

I suppose we can't generalize with this setting, but test with a good set of headphones based on ambient levels and go from there.
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