Camcorders : Sony DCR-HC40

I bought this camcorder recently. I was expecting to have my video saved in my computer and convert my old analog video tape to digital video. To my suprise that the included picture package software can't do the normal video editing. When you edit your video, you always get music and some kind of effects to your video. You can not hear the original sound you recorded and the picture is not normal. I called Sony many times, they gave me picture package company phone number. Then Picture Package company said this software is designed to do only this kind editing. You need to purchase other software in order to edit regular video. However, from my research about Sony miniDV, always said home movie is couple clicks away. Not true. be careful with the purchase. Hide Full Review

This is an ideal camcorder for someone new to videos. It is easy to just point and shoot, and the camera is easy to handle.
The colour screen is a hybrid screen ( don't worry, I'm not sure either!), and all the main camera options are available by touching this screen.
There are a wide range of options available, but it can take quite a time to set everything the way you want it to be.
10x zoom is adequate for most situations, but could have been bigger. 120x digital zoom can never compensate for this.
I can't comment on the bundled software as I have a Mac and use their own program, iphoto to do the basic video editing that some are requesting here. If only a Firewire (ilink) cable came as standard...
Overall, a safe bet for an easy to use, feature packed camera. Hide Full Review

Don't buy this camcorder. I've used it for about a month and now neither one of my batterys will charge. Sony has zero customer support. I've checked out other web sites and there are lots of HC40 customers with the same problem.

If you attach a charged battery the access lamp light keeps flashing causing it run down. Hide Full Review

Within a few minutes of charging the included battery I had video of one of my kids singing a song captured through USB, stored as an AVI file my computer, converted it to MPEG4 and emailed to his Granny. The intuitive menus let you change any setting but the defaults for focus, color, exposure etc. are outstanding. This really is a fine point-and-shoot camcorder. The quality of the videos, especially compared to my trusty old analog Sony camcoder, are impressive, even when shown on large TV screen (as good as any commecial DVD). Even the still pictures are pretty good for a camcoder this price. The user who complained about color must have a faulty unit, I'd recommend he contact Sony since both indoor and outdoor colors on my HC40 are very good indeed. I agree with others that the included picture software (apart from the USB driver and USB steam tuning tool)is worthless. Once the driver was installed, however, I had no problem capturing video with Roxio Videowave software I already had on my computer, and converting to MPEG4 with Quicktime Pro. Hide Full Review