The Sony HDR-SR11 camcorder we have was originally obtained to film a low-budget talk show. We wanted HD Quality in full 1920x1080, with the convenience of hard-drive based recording. Having run an old Sony DCR-TRV720, we were a bit tired of the lengthy ingest times for NLE production.

As with all Sony products, the build quality of the HDR-SR11 is second to none.

The camera feels solid, and there aren't any chintzy rubber doors covering ports like the older handycams.

The 2 port doors operate smoothly and intuitively, without any surprises, and I've never had a problem with any PHYSICAL part of the camera breaking. (See "Durability" below to see what actually broke.)

Sony products are legendary in their durability.

This camera has been used for about 2-3 hours per week for the entire 3 years 9 months that this review covers.

The only signs of wear are on the touch-screen flip open panel, specifically where the most used items exist. (See figure 2)

There is one issue I had with the front select button/dial wheel. After about 2 years, the sensitivity of the dial wheel went out the window, and now the dial doesn't respond in a linear fashion. Dialing UP used to always proceed UP on the selected function, but now dialing UP (or DOWN) gives you random up and down adjustments, and I've taken to foregoing its use entirely and manually setting the selections via the touch-screen interface. It's a nice fallback to have, but the dial shouldn't have failed as it did. This could have been overcome if the lens system had dedicated rings for focus, aperture, and zoom.

The included battery runs the camera in HD mode for about 90 minutes on a full charge. You will get longer battery life when filming in SD, as the video compression is much easier and faster and doesn't take as much computational power. Playback of either stills or video will also give longer run times, even when reviewing HD content.

It is recommended that you ALWAYS get extra batteries with any Sony product, because Sony have NEVER allowed you to both use the camera AND charge the attached battery when on wall power... it's one or the other. If you're using the camera on wall power to transfer footage between shoots, you will have to remove the battery and place it on an optional stand-alone charger (sold separately) in order to be charged and ready to continue filming after you've transferred the footage. Otherwise you'll have to get used to first transferring the footage, then turning the camera OFF (which enables the on-camera battery charging) and then waiting for the battery to charge. Unfortunately, there is no progress indicator to tell you how far you've charged the battery, as was present on previous SD Sony handycams.

The first thing I did was to get an extended life battery to use as the main battery and use the provided standard life battery as an emergency backup. This is the recommended course for ANY Sony product, as they have NEVER allowed you to charge an attached battery while using the camera on wall power.

After 2 years of use, the hi-cap battery began showing 'dead battery' and blacking out even though the display indicated about 85-90 minutes of battery life remaining.

Camera controls are straightforward, and most functions are accessed through the menu interface on the touch screen. Some functions such as Nightshot are hard physical switches. (See figure) The camera has an "Easy" mode that strips almost all customizability and makes it a 'point-and-shoot' camera suitable for soccer moms and technophobes alike.

There is one design goof in that the viewfinder does not EXTEND beyond the back of the camera like previous Handycam models. The end result is that if you purchase the largest capacity battery, the battery will extend well beyond the viewfinder's eyepiece and you will have a hard time seeing anything through the viewfinder. In that case, you are forced to use the flip-out LCD panel to see what you're filming.

There isn't much to do to the HDR-SR11, maintenance-wise. There aren't any tape heads to clean, and the touchscreen is easily cleaned with any cloth you would use to clean reading glasses. The main lens sits behind an automatic shutter that closes when the camera is off.

You get a loud distinctive "ZINK" when the dust cover/lens cap operates, which has garnered me odd looks when filming school concerts or anything in a quiet setting.

There are enough manual controls available to make this camera suitable for indie filmmaking. You get manual white balance within a few clicks, as well as manual exposure and focus controls.

Unfortunately, there is no focus ring so all manual focus operations occur either through the touchscreen interface or via the button/selector wheel at the front of the camera (which has proven prone to failure). Performing a quick "Rack focus" is simply impossible on this camera.

The camera does surprisingly have 70% and 100% zebra patterns, a welcome touch to help with manual exposure control.

MSRP at time of purchase: $1,500.

NOTE: Do NOT, I repeat DO NOT use any New-York-based "camera specialty" shops. The retail box for this camera comes with cables, USB docking station, wall charger, remote control, software and a battery. These shops open the box, strip out all included items, then ship you the camera ONLY. If you then purchase all of the "included" items separately, you will pay several hundred MORE than paying full MSRP from your local electronics superstore. I filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint against a few of these so-called businessmen.

As there are no expensive (and prone to deterioration) video tapes to amass, the only real long-term operating costs consist of:

• Multiple batteries to overcome Sony's irrational mandate that you CANNOT charge the battery while using the camera on wall power...

• Any Memory Stick media that you wish to take pictures or video onto... and

• Any storage media that you archive your source footage onto, including CD/DVD/Blu-Ray discs (and their associated writable drives) or external / removable Hard Drives.

Being Sony, being Handycam, the parts flow like water. You can get any lens add-on that is fitted for a 37mm diameter lens, which is a Sony consumer standard. Many items are available in a 37mm diameter mount. I purchased the smallest camera bag that Sony made at the time, which would actually hold 2 (or 3 in a pinch) HDR-SR11 cameras. Best buy carried that bag for about $40 in early 2008.

There are several still image resolutions that this camera can capture, but the interesting thing is how it captures the maximum resolution images at 10.2 megapixels. The actual image sensor is nowhere near that pixel count, so Sony have done some "black magic" with pixel-shifting and interpolation to create a reasonable image at far beyond the imaging sensor's actual resolution of 5.66 megapixels.

The fine details in any image tend to look like those sound-proof ceiling tiles made up of what looks like dried spaghetti. There are strange "worms" present in smooth tones. Whenever the texture is near the pixel count of the sensor, it makes some wild "guesses" that create some strange artifacts. See the image below to see how it made english text look almost Japanese!

The reason we purchased this camera is because it supports full HD quality (1920 x 1080i) at the maximum quality setting (HD FH). See the chart below to see every available recording format this camera supports.

The recording times on the sister camera (HDR-SR12) are approximately twice of those for the HDR-SR11. 

This was Sony's first foray into Full HD, since their previous cameras used the HDV tape format (1440 x 1080). The frame rate is set to NTSC standard of 29.97 and the video is interlaced, making it Blu-Ray compliant right off the camera; however, this camera does not have manual shutter speeds or frame rates, so you cannot record in progressive mode, nor at 24 fps.

The video quality is very good, but it looks like video with the interlaced only encoding. Achieving a film look will take some magic in the post-production process. The single CMOS sensor also has some artifacting due to its rolling shutter, causing slight "JelloCam" effects when performing whip pans.

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!

More to follow on this review... STAY TUNED!