Sony HDR-CX260V High Definition Handycam 8.9 MP Camcorder with 30x Optical Zoom and 16 GB Embedded Memory (Black) (2012 Model)

This review is for the Sony HDR-CX260V. This camera is similar but not identical to the HDR-PJ260V. The differences between the two cameras are:HDR-CX260V:Records in stereo; has one speaker on the left side of the camera; average power use: HD: 2.6W, STD: 2.4W; Weight 7 oz; slightly smaller dimensionsHDR-PJ260V: in addition to the features of the CX (+ approx $100):Records in stereo or 5.1; 2 speakers at the bottom of LCD; can display audio level on the screen while recording; headphone jack; average power use: HD: 2.7W, STD: 2.5W; Weight 11 oz; slightly larger dimensions; built-in projector; wireless remote (sensor at front of camera); threads for conversion lenses, filters, etc.First of all, this is a really nice little camera. I did a lot of research before buying it, including reading all of the reviews and comments here. A lot has already been said, so I'm going to avoid covering the same ground too extensively. Personally, of the features on the PJ model, the only ones I might have had some interest in are 1) the threads to attach lens filters, and 2) the headphone jack. I just couldn't justify spending an extra $100 just for those two items.The camera itself is a nice size but pretty small, about the size of a small can of tomato paste. The image and sound quality are excellent.The Active SteadyShot and the Extended Zoom work together. There are 3 settings for SteadyShot: off, normal and active. In normal mode, the camera mechanically reacts to movement. The zoom at this point is completely optical, and it magnifies up to 33x. When SteadyShot is set to active, the extended zoom is also turned on, and you now can zoom to 55x. (Extended zoom does *not* reduce image quality.) Extended zoom isn't the same as *digital* zoom. Digital zoom *does* degrade image quality. It works by using an area of the sensor that is smaller than is needed to produce a full frame, and then "blows it up" to the size of a full frame. This makes it seem as if the camera has zoomed-in even closer, but it also results in a "blocky" or pixelated image which worsens as the zoom level increases. The digital zoom can magnify up to 350x (which I have been surprised to discover is fairly usable up until the very last little bit). The image stabilization does work, especially the active mode. SteadyShot is there to help with normal camera shake, but it can't fix everything (for instance running down stairs while recording). For that you want a much more expensive camera.Low light performance is pretty good also. Two caveats: 1) leave the white balance in auto 2) if the image seems a bit noisy, try manually adjusting the exposure down a notch or two. If I'm shooting where lighting is subdued, I try to achieve a watchable image; light enough to see, but still looking like it actually was. If you try to go too much beyond that, your image noise is going to increase substantially. Also, the "Low Lux" (low light) setting isn't handled automatically, even in Intelligent Auto. You must enable or disable it yourself.This camera has two available recording frame rates - 60i and 60p.One thing about the camera that I found to be insanely cool - online help. Whenever you go into a menu or click on a menu choice, there's a brief description of what that item does. Also, if a choice is grayed out, go ahead and try it anyhow - the camera will tell you exactly why that option isn't available, and in some cases will make the necessary changes for you.I found the menus to be pretty well laid out. My suggestion is play around with the camera settings a little; you're not going to break it. It takes a little time to get used to the layout. I find that I'm most often in either the Camera/Mic menu or Setup. Camera/Mic is more shooting related (white balance, scene selection), and Setup is more camera-related (usb settings, which memory to use, audio volume, etc.) In the other four submenus, there's really very little to see. I really like the touchscreen, I've kind of gotten used to that from my cell phone. (BTW the "screen calibration" menu item is to align the touch-surface with the image on the LCD, not to adjust the screen to your personal touch.) In navigating the menus, I kind of wish they'd given the option to swipe through, but the scrollbars work fine. If there are a few items you keep going to, there are 3 "buttons" on the left side of the home screen that you can customize with anything from the Camera/Mic menu. (You set this up in the Camera/Mic menu.) Some people have complained about "fat fingers" causing trouble with the touchscreen; I find that using the outside "edge" of my thumb towards the tip works well. Sometimes holding and pressing gently or even rolling slightly helps too, instead of tapping.The camera comes well equipped, but if you're serious about shooting, at least buy a pair of larger batteries. Big Mike's has a package Sony HDR-CX260V Handycam Camcorder Battery & Battery Charger Kit with (2) NP-FV70 Batteries, AC/DC Rapid Charger, LCD Screen Protectors and Micro Fiber Cleaning Cloth for around $40, all good quality, which is less than the cost of a single OEM battery; a great deal.For memory, I purchased a Class 10 64GB SanDisk SDXC card. This camera requires an SD card of Speed Class 4 or higher. The largest card that Sony guarantees will work is 64GB, but larger cards MAY work. SD or SDSC cards are available up to 2GB; avoid them, they are most likely too slow to work properly. SDHC (High Capacity) 4GB to 32GB, are compatible with pretty much everything. SDXC (eXtended Capacity) 64GB up to 2TB (2048 GB); uses the ExFAT file system, which may not be recognized by computers (XP needs a patch to use ExFAT), TVs, DVD/Blu-Ray players, etc. unless the card is reformatted to FAT32 (which isn't straightforward). In a few of the reviews where people weren't able to access data, or their computers crashed trying, there's a good chance that they were using an SDXC card on a system that wasn't set up for it. Unless you're computer savvy and absolutely need a 64GB card, stick to SDHC cards (32GB and below) and save yourself some headaches. This is an issue with the memory card itself, not the camera.I was able to connect to my computer by USB with no problems on the first try. If you record on a removable card, you can also just remove it and use a card reader to copy files to your computer. Video files have an .MTS extension and are found in the "\PRIVATE\AVCHD\BDMV\STREAM" folder. Photos can be found in the "\DCIM\100MSDCF" folder.Another note: you determine which memory you want to record to (internal or external) in the Setup menu. The camera won't switch between them automatically. Also, some concerns have been raised about the camera recording in 2GB files; there is no gap at the switchover and the camera will continue recording until you run out of space or turn it off; it's invisible to the user. If you use the onboard software, it will reassemble the clips for you. Otherwise it's simple to do in an editing program.The Built-in Zoom Mic works really well, I'm actually kind of impressed. Closer Voice on the other hand is much more subtle. With Closer Voice on, some of the background noise is removed, but speech seemed slightly muffled/distorted/burbly which is a side effect of some types of noise reduction. It's possible that some of the room reverb was removed also, but it's difficult to tell for certain. Since you can't have Zoom Mic and Closer Voice on at the same time, my vote is for Zoom Mic.Regarding some complaints about hearing camera noise; turn off the automatic gain control by setting Micref Level to "low", and make sure that the zoom mic is turned off. As an example, if you were shooting an outside scene through/near to window glass, the camera sounds will bounce off the glass into the microphones on the front of the camera and zooming in will make it even worse. With Micref Level set to low, I noticed no camera sounds, and quiet moments were actually quiet.Auto wind noise reduction; nice feature. In order to remove the noise, the sound quality will be affected to at least some degree. The noise reduction probably involves partially combining the left and right channels to cancel out some of the sound that is common to both channels. This would reduce stereo separation somewhat, making it closer to mono. I guess the question is, do you want an accurate recording with all the wind noise on it, or would you prefer something that is listenable, but sounds a bit "off"? My vote is for the latter.Intelligent Auto handles the following settings: face detection, scene detection, camera-shake detection and sound detection. If any of these settings are turned off, turning on Intelligent Auto will enable them; however, turning Intelligent Auto back off won't put the settings back where they were. You will need to go back and disable those items again. I suspect many people will just want to leave Intelligent Auto "on", or otherwise won't bother messing with the affected settings. (Incidentally Intelligent Auto isn't on by default; the "button" to enable it is on the lower right-hand corner of the LCD, or it can also be done in the Camera/Mic menu.) Normally screen indicators tell you either status (i.e. battery level) or that something's been turned on. For the following (which relate mostly to Intelligent Auto), you get a screen indicator when the item is turned *off*: Face Detection, Smile Shutter, SteadyShot, Auto Wind NR and Closer Voice.There's a setting available called x.v.Color; this is a cool feature whose time hasn't quite come yet. If your TV set supports it (and I discovered that mine does), it allows a wider range of colors to be displayed, which should result in more accurate color reproduction. Unfortunately, it isn't part of the DVD or Blu-ray standard, so if you burn your video to a disc, this feature is lost in the process. Bottom line, this isn't well supported yet or convenient to use, so it's of limited use at the moment. For now, it's best to just leave it turned off. Maybe in a few years industry support will improve.Eco Mode controls the LCD backlight status and powering-down of the camcorder after a period of inactivity. [Off] LCD brightness remains at menu setting (normal/bright) and camera remains on; [Standard] backlight off at 1 minute of inactivity and camera off at 2; [Max] LCD brightness is adjusted to the surrounding brightness automatically. Backlight off at 15 seconds, camera off at 1 minute. Anything plugged into the A/V remote connector jack will disable eco mode and keep the camera awake. This includes the optional Sony GPAVT1 Shooting Grip with Mini Tripod, and most likely the Sony RM-AV2 Remote Commander as well.(PC Only) The camera comes with a "lite" version of PlayMemories Home loaded on it. If you plug the camera into your computer's USB port and connect, the camera will appear in Windows Explorer as one or two drives (the internal memory and also the external memory card if present). The drive with the lower letter will have a setup file for PlayMemories. Once installed, you can tell it to update, and it will download additional features. The software's pretty basic, and for my purposes will probably only be used for some file management and nothing else. On the other hand, the program isn't the devil spawn some others would make it out to be. You don't have to install the program, but if you don't have anything else to use, it's there for you. It'll import video, allow you to annotate/manage it, burn it to DVD or Blu-Ray, and also serves as a decent player. You can do a bit of editing also, but it's mainly limited to trimming. For an entry-level bare bones program, it really isn't bad. Personally, I'm a big fan of Sony Vegas, which I've been using for a couple of years now; so personally, that's where I plan on doing most of my editing.Hopefully, this review helped answer some questions and maybe even solved or prevented some difficulties for someone. I've had the camera for about 6 weeks now, and I've had plenty of time to go through its features thoroughly and experiment with it. I feel that I paid a fair price for it, that it will do what I want it to do, and that I will be able to depend on it. It's not complicated to use, and if you aren't interested in exploring its features, turn on Intelligent Auto and just shoot. For someone more inclined to tinker with settings, there's a lot for them too. No complex consumer item is ever perfect for everyone, but this camera has a range of features and a level of performance that makes it a winner in my opinion.

This is the third time I have bought a SONY video camera. Each one has impressed me.This one impresses me as well. The camera is feature rich and delivers a nice colorful clean image even when the daylight is fading. The projector is a real pleasant surprise. For it's size it delivers a bright picture on a standard wall even with room light still on. I suggest using it at an image size around 3' high x 5' wide. Considering the tiny weenie speaker, that also performs adaquately. GPS is sketchy. Sometimes it struggles to receive a signal outdoors. More importantly, it does not place a stamp on a still or motion picture as to the location it found via GPS. Only in computer software does it locate where you have been. This I felt was disappointing because if you want to keep this information, you have to add it in manually during the editing process.On the box it says it's Mac compatable. In the manual it says it really isn't. Who's right?Basically the manual is correct. Why? Because the Mac uses QuickTime and mp4 compression standards. The Sony shoots movies in avi format which the Mac can't read.I own a Mac. For those of you who also own a Mac...take heart. There is an easy solution to owning a Mac & the Sony all at the same time. Software called iSkySoft iMedia Converter and another called Aiseesoft Mac Total Media Converter are the work around answer to this problem. The software can be received on line as a download and they run about $ 35.00 when on sale. They claim to make any format into any other digital movie format and they do deliver.Simply drag your avi movies from the SD flash memory on to the software window, select what you want it to convert to and click a screen button. Once the coversion is made, you can then import it to iMovie or other applications that support mp4 or Quicktime files for all your editing and burning needs.**Two items of note on the camera:As is the case with most camera products now -#1 - No Peephole view finder. In full sun, it's much better then squinting in a video LCD screen.#2 - You control most items through the touch screen. You cannot leave the play and pause buttons on to have at your fingertips making the operation of the camera clumsy during playback. Stopping and starting the camera should not mandate a search through your menu items for a simple operation like that.OVERALL: It's a really nice camera with many good rich features for a very fair price.1/27/14 UPDATE:I just returned from a vacation in Southeast Asia. Using this video camera on this trip helped me understand several things I was unaware of before.I found that the extended battery is a much smarter power supply when you are out all day on a vacation. The stock batteries tend to get eaten by the camera within about 90-120 minutes. The bigger battery just allows you to go on running standby or shooting without the concern that you'll need a replacement at the wrong time.The zoom feature with added digital enhancement is absolutely awesome. I took a shot of a statue on a far away mountain top that most people could only see as a dot. This actually showed up as the entire statue within the weather parameters in which it was shot. It was hazy that day but not the fault of the camera. It still brought in the shot. One thing to caution is that at extreme range, you either have to have the camera against a rock or on a tripod as it is impossible to hold it steady enough to see your shot otherwise. Again not the fault of the camera. Just that at great distances it is motion sensitive.All the other basic features of the camera work really well especially it's low light capabilities.The GPS feature is powerful and works great.....BUT....On a Mac, the software for it sucks or shall I say the lack of Mac mapping software. SONY really dropped the ball on this one. It's one thing to purchase an additional application to convert the AVI format to MP4. I can handle that BUT there is NO SOFTWARE for the Mac for retrieving the GPS data and using it on a MAC. Come on Sony....wake up. Mac people are out here and need a level playing field.

I purchased this camera for hobby use, since I like to film my projects but my phone often runs out of storage. For a consumer camcorder from c. 2012, this is a good product. The video quality is excellent, even compared to modern smartphones, and the low-light performance is acceptable (though I recommend still filming with proper lighting whenever possible). The built-in USB cable is extremely handy, and has saved my butt a few times when I've been out and about without a battery charger. Using a 2.4A USB charger also allows the camera to charge fairly quickly while on the go, though nowhere near as fast as with the included AC adapter.For the price point, I found the UI to be pretty good. The touch screen is very helpful, especially when filming yourself and not having easy access to the few buttons toward the back. I obviously wouldn't recommend this camera for anything near pro-sumer use, but that's not what it's designed for. This camcorder is meant for the folks who just want an easy way to record videos in our everyday lives and might want a few extra features (like the mic input) to play with too.