Sony HDR-TD20VE review
This is a great 3D camcorder with lots of connectivity and a magnificent touchscreen monitor
The TD20VE is also well equipped with connectors, having an active accessory shoe that’s hidden within a pop-up cover, a mini USB port, a mini HDMI port, an A/V multi-out port and separate microphone and headphone ports.
Once you’ve captured your footage, you’ll want to export it to your TV or PC, and the HDR-TD20VE provides many options to do this. One obvious method is to connect the HDR-TD20VE to your TV using the mini HDMI port, but you can also copy videos from the built-in flash storage to an SDHC or Memory Stick Duo card so you can use it on any computer with a card reader.
This is extremely handy should you choose to use the internal storage, because we had problems copying to and viewing videos on our test PCs when we attached the HDR-TD20VE via USB cable. Our PCs recognised the camera and loaded its built-in utility, but when we tried to copy or view videos we were told that they were in use and it couldn’t let us do either. The ability to interact with your HDR-TD20VE via a USB connection is an important part of the unit, and the problems we encountered coloured our view of the camcorder for the worst. Annoyingly, it also took around 28 minutes to copy 1 hour and 35 minutes of video from the internal storage to an SD card, which is longer than we were expecting.
Thankfully, we had better luck when we used the connected HDR-TD20VE as a Mass Storage device rather than the default MTP. We could then view and copy videos easily.
To make connection to your PC easier, the HDR-TD20VE has a built-in USB cable that tucks in to the wrist strap. This is handy should you not have a cable to hand, but it’s incredibly short. The HDR-TD20VE comes with a USB extender, but the problem here is that you’ll need to keep it with you at all times.
The HDR-TD20VE is perfect if you’re an enthusiast who wants to dabble in 3D film-making. If you’re strictly 2D, we think the Sony HDR-CX730E is a better option, but there’s no doubting the HDR-TD20VE is well-equipped, high quality and above all fun camcorder.
Basic Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Rating | ***** |
Recording | |
| Optical zoom | 10.0x |
| Digital zoom | 120x |
| Sensor | 1/3.91in CMOS |
| Sensor pixels | 5,020,000 |
| Widescreen mode | native |
| LCD screen size | 3.5in |
| Viewfinder type | colour touchscreen |
| Video lamp | Yes |
| Video recording format | AVCHD 2.0 |
| Video recording media | flash memory, Memory Stick Pro Duo and SD card |
| Sound | 5.1 surround |
| Video resolutions | 1,920×1,080 |
| Maximum image resolution | 6,016×3,384 |
| Memory slot | SD and Memory Stick Pro Duo |
| Mermory supplied | 64GB internal |
| Flash | yes |
Physical | |
| Digital inputs/outputs | mini HDMI out, mini USB |
| Analogue inputs/outputs | Mic, Headphones |
| Other connections | charge jack, active accessory shoe |
| Battery type | Li-ion |
| Battery life | 4h 30m |
| Battery charging position | camcorder |
| Size | 29x48x81 |
| Weight | 460g |
Buying Information | |
| Warranty | one year RTB |
| Price | £1,158 |
| Supplier | http://www.amazon.co.uk |
| Details | www.sony.co.uk |