Hi, I recently went for the the hdr-sr1 for an amazing deal.
So now I have it.

I have a few questions about it though.

1. Why can I hear the zoom on the audio? (Is it broken, ways around it?) I have a four year warranty if it is broken for some reason...
2. Why is the audio so sensitive...when i am holding it you can hear every single movement on the camera. I didn't plan to only use it on a tripod.
3. I have the wireless mic...if I record using just the mic will it be stereo? (it can be switched between center and just the wireless.)
4. What is the best addon microphone for the camcorder? (Will it be okay if it is stereo?)
5. Will SD record in stereo?
6. When I use headphones with the camera I hear a lot of shhhhh sound, is it bad.
7. When is it the best time to use the wide lens? (all times?)
.........finally, why is the screen so big??
Just kidding.

So, if anyone could help me with these questions, or I would also like to get some tips and manual setting reccomendations (like zebra, ring setting, wb, and anything else)

Thanks so much!

Hi blackhwk,

I too own an HDR-SR1, so I'll try to answer some of your questions:

1. hear the zoom?
2. Sensitive audio?
6. headphones?

I have never heard the zoom on my camera. I did plug headphones in once and noticed how loud it was. Maybe #6 is causing #1 and #2? Can you hear the zoom when playing the video clips on your computer?

3. Wireless Mic?: If you are using Sony's bluetooth mic, then you still get surround sound and the center channel plays the sound from the bluetooth mic. This is really, really cool.

4. SD record in stereo?: I've never recorded in SD. I always record in HD, but many times convert the clips to SD for editing on certain projects. The converted SD clips retain the surround sound.

One setting I find very helpful is White Balance. I frequently shoot video in a gymnasium with florescent lights which produces a very yellow video. I carry a blank piece of white paper with me. Once in the gym, I focus the camera on the white paper and hit the White Balance/One Push button and the camera automatically calibrates itself. The yellow is gone!

The SMTH SLW REC (slow motion) feature is pretty slick for filming basketball games.

Hope this is helpful.

Brady
(also from the great state of Illinois)

Thanks for the reply Brady,
The wireless can be set to the center channel, but it can also be set to just use the wireless. So I was wondering when you set it to just the microphone itself, will it be just in stereo?

Thanks for the White Balance tip too.
I also noticed that if I put the raw MTS files in vegas it works perfectly like M2TS...so do I have to change the extension for some reason? Is there anyway to program that in the registry?

One last thing...check this guy out, he used an HDR-SR1 for all of his videos.
http://vimeo.com/youdiejoe

Hi blackhwk;

There are two ways to get the files from your camera to your computer. One is to use Sony's Picture Motion Browser software. The other is to just copy the files from the camera's hard drive to your computer hard drive.

On the camera's hard drive, the files are sequentially named and have the .mts extension: 00000.mts, 00001.mts, etc. You can copy those files straight from the camera to your computer.

If you use Sony's Picture Motion Browser software to transfer the files to the computer, the filename gets changed to a date/time stamp, and the extension gets changed to .m2ts.

Cyberlink's PowerDirector video editing software reads the .m2ts files directly.

By the way, youdiejoe has some awesome videos.

Hope this is helpful.