Overall, the sound is a bit raspy and tinny, but the Bloggie does capture dialogue well for interviews and background is ambience is recorded with startling clarity. Alas, the internal sound is mono-only with no external mic option – a feature offered in stereo on the Kodak Zi8. The Info Lithium battery is quoted as lasting between 60mins (typical) and 95mins (continuous), though the Bloggie didn’t ever die on us because every time we uploaded content it began to charge.
You'll need the MHS-PM5K to get 360 lens, the MHS-PM5 doesn't include it
Undoubtedly, it’s the video quality and the ease of use of the Bloggie that impress, rather than the 360-degree gimmickry. The on-board PMB Portable software enables uploads of video or stills to your favourite video or photo sharing site with the option to include preferred URLs for alternative destinations. Of course, you can import files to iMovie or some other package for local editing too, as the Bloggie’s MP4 files don’t cause any major headaches for playback.
Verdict
Compared to other models of this ilk, Sony’s MHS-PM5K Bloggie certainly offers decent video and stills. The articulating lens makes shooting easy and creative and even the digital zoom gives better results than you’d expect, it’s just a shame its operation wasn’t smoother. The 360-degree mode definitely needs refining, but could be good, one day. That aside, support for SD cards will potentially win over new users, as well as its convenience. You don’t need to carry a lot of paraphernalia with the Bloggie, not even a charger is necessary, as it charges when connected to a computer. If you’re travelling and want to share photos and videos quickly on-line, then the Bloggie was made with you in mind. ®
More Camcorder Reviews...
Samsung HMX-U10 |
Toshiba Camileo S20 |
Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD2000 |
Pure Flip Mino HD |
Sony Bloggie
COMMENTS
The name...
I believe this automatically gets a 0% score for such an awful name.
Why do ElReg camcorder reviews...
Why do the Register's camcorder reviews never discuss compression ratios and the potential for editing and processing?
Telling us it's MP4 is all well and good, but how heavily compressed does it go? Will the video degrade into a hellish series of blocks if we run it through Final Cut and reencode it to any form of MPEG? HD's all well and good, but right now I don't know if any given HD device is going to give me better results than an old SD tape camcorder in terms of final picture quality.
I look at the "pocket" HD camcorders and the handheld HD camcorders and despite the big price difference, they seem to have very similar recording times -- are they using the same compression ratios? Are they *good* compression ratios? I don't want to shell out £500 to get superior optics only to find that the software cheats me out of picture quality so that I'd be as well off with a £100 pocket model.
Enquiring minds need to know!
Well, well, well...
In the dim and distant past pretty much every bit of Hi-Fi and consumer electronics I owned was Sony kit.
You paid more but got a top quality product.
In time other manufacturers began to raise the quality bar up to (and beyond) the Sony level, but the Sony *brand* was always more expensive.
Being geared more towards quality than brand loyalty I began to buy a more mixed bag of kit.
Then Sony decided they were big and important enough to force their customers into their over-priced proprietary Memory Stick *standard*. Since then, I haven't bought a single Sony product. Why would I lock myself in?
If their move toward SD continues I might begin to consider buying Sony again. (Although not this particular overpriced piece of poo)
Well..
Although it's a horribly pointless device, has a typical Sony-small-camera fiddly interface and is accompanied by the most nauseatingly Barleyesque lifestyle PR photography imaginable, the software's crap and produces distinctly mediocre images...
..at least Sony have learned on the memory stick thing! It always takes them years of lost sales- for example, the Walkman digital fiasco with compulsory ATRAC transcoding. However, they are learning. This is good, compact digitals are an insanely competitive market these days, and hobbling youself due to management stupidity is a problem, even if you're the size of Sony.
Good on yer, Sony. You have a very tarnished reputation due to the last few years, maybe this is a sign that some people with clues are starting to make decisions..
