Gear: Sony DCR-DVD810 Camcorder

I’ve been trying to cut my teeth on producing videos and at the end of December 2008 I purchased a Sony DCR-DVD810 from Wal-Mart  for less than $400. Last week, before the return period was up, I was seriously thinking about returning it just so I could try out a different camcorder, maybe a Canon in the same price range. But, I decided, meh, for the price this camcorder is fine and there probably isn’t much difference between the competitors products. Big mistake.

Yesterday I discovered there is no way to plug an external, non-Sony mic into one of these things. From reading around a bit on the net it seems that all the major camcorder vendors are stripping the audio capabilities from their cheap cameras — if you consider $400 to be cheap — in an effort to push buyers into he higher end market.  This seems to be true for the entry-level hi-def cameras as well. There are little to no options for using an external corded or wireless mic from a 3rd party.

I thought there was an accessory attachment for the Sony Accessory Interface, or SAI, that allowed for external microphones to be jacked into the camcorder but come to find out the Sony VMC-K100, a great little device that attaches to the SAI and provides a standard mic-in jack, is a discontinued product.  The general consensus is that the product was discontinued because Sony couldn’t sell their crappy mics when there was a mic-in adapter available for $30.

I’ll tell you what, I’d pay $75 for a VMC-K100 right now. I give the DCR-DVD810 and any other camcorder that does not provide a mic-in jack a minus 10 stars. And I hold the corporations who engage in slimy marketing practices such as this in the utmost contempt. I know, that’s pretty much all of them, right?

For what I am trying to do right now, I could live with this camera, excpet for the audio. But if you have any inkling to try your hand at producing decent quality amateur videos, which requires the ability to record decent audio in a variety of differnt situations, DO NOT buy the Sony DVD 810 Camcorder. I can’t make it any plainer than that.  If you need a field camera that you can use on the spur of the moment without fear that an extremely expensive piece of gear may be destroyed, this camera suffices and is probably no better or worse at producing video than comparable products on the market.