sony hdr-sr1 discontinued?

I would like to know this too. I just bought one but if there is a new one with full 1920 x 1080 and hard disk recording im there.

No new HD Hard disk model was announced at CES last week. I would think if they were bringing it out next week, they would have shown it there. I want one with 1920X1080 as well, and am still in the 30 day return period on my SR1. If anyone finds some evidence, please post it. I have been unable to find any, and the SR1 appears to be sold out everywhere because it is selling well, not because it is discontinued.

I got my sr1 from Amazon for $1317 delivered. They seem to fluctuate between $1499 and $1317 for no reason. Just keep watching.

The SR1 is still on Sony's website, but I was in Best Buy yesterday and it was no longer on dsplay. It has been listed as sold out on their website since the holidays. It would be nice to know if there are plans for a new model, but as stated before, why not announce it at CES with the other new models.

I too had this question. Sony shows new HD hard drive models coming out, but nothing that I can see with better capability. Also, JVC has several coming out, but again, nothing better than the HDR-SR1.

I just bought one at Best Buy today (1-30-07) and they honored the sale price advertised when they did not have it in stock.

I am not finding a lot of solid answers on this topic. I am however, finding that the HDR-SR1 is sold out in a lot of stores.

J & R - Out of Stock
Adorama - Out of Stock
Best Buy - Out of Stock online and my local store
PC Connection - Out of Stock
Ritz Camera - Out of Stock
B & H Photo - Out of Stock
Circuit City - Out of Stock in 3 Local Stores - Available online
Crutchfield - In Stock
Abe's of Maine - In Stock
Amazon - In Stock
Sony Style - In stock

It just seems odd to me that so many big name stores would be out of stock at the same time.

Some people are claiming the the SR1 was just release and it is too soon to be replaced, but the UX1 is only a couple of months older and it is already being replaced by two new models, so I don't think it is crazy to think that the SR1 could be on its way out. I personally want to know because as in the UX5 and the UX7, they are both smaller and lighter than the model they replace, so I expect the same to be true for the model that replaces the SR1. I am going to make a purchase before my baby is born and I want to know the one I buy is the best option. I don't want to buy this and have a replacement out a month later.

I was in the process of getting the SR1 or HC3. I was leanning towards the SR1 because of the no Disc or messy tapes.

I saw this and Registered so as to save people alot of frustration on this issue. I purchased a sony sr1 a few months ago. The results of which were poor. I got this for unit for 1299. I had nothing but problems with it as far as editing goes.. You cant edit the AVCHD format and support is still overdue. when there is support at least for adobe its going to cost $499 from main concepts for a plug-in. When trying to edit in SD format from this camera you get mpeg only from it since there is no 1394 port on the camera. The mpeg footage is useless for editing since its not supported correctly for editing in premier or vegas. on top of this your dealing with compressed video which looks like crap. after sever dozen attempts to get my edited project out onto DVD with footage from this camera i got a bugy VHS quil DVD which was unacceptable. This camera was before its time and its been droped from sony .If you can return what you have then return it ASAP. Sony was so nasty about this issue they basicly will tell you this camera is a yuppie toy for soccer moms not for anyone who wants to work with the footage.. I had to dispute with visa the charge to get out of this mess.. No one wanted to buy this camera from me either. Stay away from this camera.. Sony has lost the market here.. I am getting the Cannon XHa1 HDV camera its 3499 but I want results and the best camera on the market for the price. If you must have a sub 1500 dollar camera go with tape..

Brett

Sorry to hear about your troubles there guy [] but I've been saying this for a while now about the SR1. People are getting sucked into this like crazy, and my feeling has always been that the SR1 and AVCHD is a passing fad.

The HD industry is changing so rapidly these days that you have no idea what will be here today and gone tomorrow. That being the case, you're much better off going with tapes and hidef mpeg2. These have both been around for a looooong time. And while certainly not the most efficient, they can be used with almost any editor/computer..... and they're not going away anytime soon.

I was interested in the SR1 but after tons of reading have decided it is crap. You can find it for about 1k if you really know where to look and it seems to be on the way out. I have noticed price drops between $100-300 over the past week now and dont expect it to be around much longer. I am going to end up going with the HDR-HC7 as soon as more places get it in stock. I know some people that have it and they love it. I would love to wait for the new canon, but have decided I am to impatient to and by then something else will be on the way.

After getting the worst service and no help from sony, you see i was told you can edit the format from this camera at the Boca Raton Sony Store, and I contacted sony support, then sony CS, then Sony Presidents Level Support and was told they WOULD DO NOTHING to help me and i was only 20 days into owning this camera, A stand up company would have offered me a tape camera, i even offered to pay the retail difference for an FX-7 or something.. No I was on the phone with this guy for less then a min when he flat out said NO!!!! they would not do anything to correct my situation. I responded hey you did not even hear me out and they responded " I read the notes and thats all" They are nasty and i never found a company so thick headed as to offer no solution what so ever. I will not give my money to sony anytime soon.. Canon has earned my business.. Look at the match ups.. Sony FX-7 vs XHA1.. All i need to say is XLR jacks, same price..

Just FYI

Check out the Cannon Site for the 20 camera..

Looks like a mini XHA1 wow...


Thanks
Brett

I just spoke with Sony and they say the SR1 is NOT discontinued and that Vegas, Ulead and several other companies are developing the codec support for the AVCHD format. I am new to the forum and had just bought the SR1 the day before finding this forum so after reading the postings I am very concerned. I'm thinking about shipping the camera right back when it arrives. I purchased it from Best Price Cameras.

Go to Sony Media Software to see Vegas video's announcement on AVCHD.

cancel it asap.. I cant wait to hear if you get product from best price, they list XHA1's for some insane low price.

Best Price Cameras has a terrible reputation as a store, I sure hope that they will be cooperative if you decide to return the camera.

I agree with your assessment of Sony. Terrible, terrible company that's full of themselves and doesn't understand how to treat customers right. It seems like every time I have to contact this company about something, I've given the run around, or an attempted bait and switch. That happened when I bought the Sony product, and it's happening now when I need support under their extended (paid) warranty. (Right now, I have Sony Care for an HC1, and they keep trying to pre-emtpively charge me $249 for a repair the unit needs; I've also had severe problems with Vaio computers I've purchased in the past)

Many people will do anything they can to avoid Sony. In this day and age of pretty decent customer service, Sony is just evil (on the same level as those scammy NJ camera shops). Unfortunately, they were kings of HD recorders for awhile, and we were left with no choice. Happily, that's changing. Canon and Panasonic coming out with some spectacular units.

I just played with the XHA1 you talked about the other day. Beautiful camera! A great choice, and the XLR connections will get you some great audio.

The upcoming Canon HV20 might be nice, too, as the HV10 it's based on has a decent picture (but, from what I've seen in my own comparisons at the store, not as nice as the XHA1 as some as have claimed).

I think I'm also going to check out the Panasonic 3CCD SD1 today, too, since it's finally hit stores. (unfortunately, the SD1 willsuffer from the same lack of AVCHD codecs in NLEs as the SR1 for awhile) There's some really nice stuff on the horizon.

UPDATE.. CREDIT CARD DISPUTE WORKED>... The Store Called me and Asked me to Bring the POS Sony back.. Got a full refund, took three months but I got my money back.. Will not purchase sony products unless Absolutly Must have item..

This is asinine- you returned the camera because luddites on this forum scared you about it, and in doing so, you decided to dispute the charge?


The HDR-SR1 is a FINE CAMERA. It works great, shoots high quality video. ITs the only HDD Camera out there that's decent.

The idea that you have to shoot tape if you want to shoot HD is asinine. Basically, these are people who have tape cameras, and want to bash the newer technology.

AVCHD is not convenient to edit, this is true, but neither was HDV at this point in time after its introduction. (Seems the HDV proponents conveneintly forget that.)

There are NOT compression artifacts from the SR1. There is noise that you get in low light, and if you run at the lowest bitrate with a lot of action, you might see some compression artifacts... but the idea that AVCHD produces lower quality images than HDV is, again, asinine, and it shows that the person making hte claim does not understand what they are talking about.

These people think that HDV is like DV-- mostly uncompressed-- when reality is HDV is compressed using MPEG-2 which is a lower quality codec in all regards than MP4.

The HDR-SR1 is a good camera, and if you can live with the difficulties in editing AVCHD then itsthe one to buy for HD work.

Personally, I see it as the best SD camera out there, with an HD future for free when AVCHD is better supported.

What does insulting a person's buying habits result in?


I don't think anyone is saying you *have* to use tape. You're right, though, in saying that HDV at this point in time after its introduction wasn't particularly convenient. BUT the reality is that HDV is now a mature format. HDV is *currently* very convenient. Bringing up how HDV was back then shouldn't have an impact on a person's buying decision TODAY.


I don't dispute that AVCHD has potential. I think the HDR-SR1 was flawed, though. It was released without adequte editing support. It's a model made by Sony to test the market for hard disk based AVCHD camcorders. I would definitely wait for the next wave of hard disk based AVCHD camcorders to come out before even considering one. I'd rather wait for better products rather than have bragging rights to be an "early adopter."

What did it say, i cannot fing any reference to AVCHD on sonystyle.com under Media Editting Software \\ Video Editing.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/pro...ct.asp?pid=404


http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/pro...=404&PageID=40

At least someone finally is going to release support for this format, I don't mind a new format but it took a while from one of the creators of this format.

Isn't this format supposed to be better suited to editing versus HDV?

Don't know how AVCHD will handle within an editor but if I had to put a total guess on it, I would have to say that it would require MORE power than the regular mpeg based hi def.... It's a bit more compressed.

Put it this way... from what I have heard of SR1 owners, their claim is that the conversion from M2TS to M2T (with the supplied software) is a bit of a time consuming affair... of course there was no mention of the power and size of the computer they were running... which is a big factor.

People don't buy an SR1 because they want bragging rights as an "early adopter" they buy its because its the only hard drive based HD camcorder on the market in its price range...

You can advocate HDV, but it is, as you say a "mature" technology. With all that entails both positive and negative. The negative is that it is not nearly as space efficient and that using DV tapes is limiting for a number of shooting situations.

"from what I have heard of SR1 owners, their claim is that the conversion from M2TS to M2T (with the supplied software)"

This isn't really relevant, actually. The question was how the format will be for editing. I cannot say that it will necessarily be significantly better, but it shouldn't be significantly worse. The conversion you're talking about is decompressing MPEG4 and recompressing it as MPEG2- and resizing at the same time.

A decent editor will let you make your edit decisions and only needs to decompress the video for display. When your edits are finished and you want ot output it, only the video around the area of the splices might need to be decompressed and recompressed- and then only if this is necessary for B frames.

When you resize video in any format that requires a recompression and is thust slow.

Your statement while not strictly true is appliec incorrectly. If it was intentional then you are spreading fud. If not, then you've inadvertantly misleading people.

This is my objection to the many statements against the SR1 in this forum-- they are misleading.

What are you talking about??

When you talk about editing, you don't just talk about "splices"... that's pretty simple stuff. It gets a bit more detailed then that. Title overlays... color corrections... effects... with ANY of these maneuvers there will HUGE swaths that will need decompressing/re compressing. I did a CARTOONIZER effect on about 2 minutes of mpeg2 @25000. That 2 minutes took about 6 hours to render. Why did it take so long you ask? Well DECOMPRESSING, RE COMPRESSING for starters. Not withstanding, if you choose to go to a different format then it ALL has to be decompressed (depending on the format)

And my example of the supplied software is quite relevant... the decompression involved gives an indication of the time involved...thus complication level.

The fact is NOBODY really knows how AVCHD will handle in an editor... because it hasn't been done yet... and if you look you will find that in my opening line.

And I have NO idea why you included this...


Obviously you seem to be a very frustrated SR1 owner.... well, sorry guy... that's not my fault!

Actually, every recording format for camcorders has its own set of positive and negative points. I really think this forum needs a sticky that goes over camcorder basics and includes the different recording formats out there.

I have the camera and an HDV tape camera and it's far easier to shoot tape if you want to output HD files.


Considering *most* of the HDV cameras shoot at a higher bitrate than the options available via the HDR-SR1, it's fair to say that HDV will in general produce better quality images. There is definitely what would be defined as solarization or banding in much of the video shot at both bitrate choices with the HDR-SR1, unless you do a controlled lighting setup.




MP4 is typically a container for some flavor of MPEG-4 video. If you mean that h.264 is a more efficient codec than MPEG-2, you'd be correct, although at the maximum bitrate of the HDR-SR1 is considerably less than the 25Mbps of HDV, so even though AVCHD has the potential to outperform HDV, so far the offerings like the HDR-SR1 suggest otherwise.


Definitely not the best SD camera out there either. My Canon GL2 shoots equal or better video. The Panasonic PV-GS500 also shoots better looking SD video.

Ill chime is as an owner, but I certainly dont use every feature, I am sure. I also dont really care about editing. I am most likely to just watch the files that I created.

But first, I freaking LOVE this camera, and my wife does too. Its super easy to use, and I love the fact that every video is just a single file with a jpeg picture of the start of the video for reference. Everytime I show one of my kids videos on my HDTV my wife says how good it looks. I laugh and tell her its supposed to look good, thats why I bought it. She still says it all the time though.... lol...

In any case, its an awesome camera, great connectivity, and great looking video. I second guess about every tech purchase I make but this is a real keeper.

Thanks hifiaudio, camcorderinfo.com praised and complained about the SR1 at the same time, but that site's reviews while accurate are geared towards more of a professional crowd. I think this camcorder would satisfy me.

The PS3 now plays .m2ts files created by the hdr-sr1. I am copying all my home movies to it now.