I guess so - but I'm based in Australia so we use PAL - most of the cameras available in Aus if not all are PAL based. NTSC is the US standard. I guess it depends what you're going to do with the footage - if it's going to broadcast then in US NTSC would be better. for internet I don't think it's too much of a problem either way but perhaps someone else can comment. (I work in broadcast, but on PAL systems so don't know much about NTSC). I convert some videos to 30fps and they're ok. still working it out for net video. vimeo suggests 60fps for hd on their faq page.

(my latest was larger than earlier vids and it's having some problems - kept getting errors whilst uploading & the conversion on my pc locally had some probs I think)

the best thing I love about this camera though so far is that I can take still photos whilst recording video without changing to camera mode. I chose this camera over the others as it's got 10 megapixel stills which was higher res than the others (they had ~3) - I take lots of photos and had broken my camera so have been using the phone camera for stills (5mp), so this camera can cover both now. plus it's a nice small size to hold & I love the zoom. happy so far!

the only annoying thing is the conversion on pc (mac seems easier) - I have to do a couple of steps but perhaps I just haven't found the right software/method yet. my work pc is old, slow & crashes a lot so converting/uploading is taking forever.

mike ambs' mentioned he has the hf10 on another thread - his videos look great. I was going to go for that (actually they hf11 as the shop didn't have hf10) but then I saw this one had the better stills photos.

There is a black market store in my city and just found there a new HDR-CX12 (yes, the US version) but they have no official warranty.
I'm going to make a documentary of village culture and farmers life among many other interesting ideas such as food hunting while backpacking, etc. (adventures! woohoo)

This particular Sony product is fascinating indeed, having the feature of 'smile shutter' which automatically snap a perfect smiling face (rare spontaneous, not fake ones) while recording video, have you tried it?
And not to mention the Sony's infra-red nightshot 0 lux and the smooth slow-motion, sets them apart from the rest.
(some people might consider all this feature as a gimmick, its their problem not mine)

Now I'm beginning to think, if PAL uses the same given bandwidth of 16Mbps as NTSC does then mathematically speaking it should be of more data per frame, as PAL uses 20% less fps, resulting in lower compression thus sharper image? Though I personally think it maybe not discernible (but really, 20% IS something)..

Looking forward to your latest, don't worry my CPU power is lacking performance too.. The new Macbook Pro is wayyy to $$$$$. :P

yeah the smile detection is pretty cool. it kicked in for these couple of photos (taken through a car window)

flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/3032446006
flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/3032448242

you get little squares around the faces - two squares in the examples above - one for each person

this example is taken whilst photographing the tv - it definitely chose the smile. I think my photos are better using this camera - due to the 10megapixel and the smile/face recognition as I tend to miss the 'good shot' often on other cameras. perhaps it's quicker to take the photo too - maybe faster memory. I just hold the photo button down (u can do it whilst in video mode too without changing to photo mode - this is my favourite feature as I used to get annoyed changing modes on my old camera)

flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/3004539333

I know pal gives better colours on analog tv. for net videos I'm not sure that pal vs ntsc matters much though.

the night vision is good too -- I have an old sony dvd camera with it too and it's great for shooting gigs/bands indoors at night. this one seems just as good if not better.

my only problem now is I should have bought more memory sticks for it prior to this trip as I don't have much spare hdd space and didn't bring my external drive to offload the .mts files.

the most annoying part of the camera is converting the .mts raw files to .mp4 or .mov. on pc I'm using VoltaicHD but it can only save to avi or wmv, so I goto avi, then use SUPER to convert to .mov or h264 format. the mac version of VoltaicHD can go directly to .mov/h264. after conversion the files are nice and small though - better compression than I've ever had before! maybe this is due to the video scaling, not sure.

your doco sounds really interesting!! would love to see it. have you started it or are you waiting for the camera.

AWESOME automatic photos! I will definitely buy this Handycam A.S.A.P., nothing can stop me now.

The projects will be started as soon as the camera arrived. Expect many trial & errors in order to achieve the taste of Nat Geo/DiscoveryChannel's documentary editing (I'm using Sony Vegas pro 8 and/or Adobe Premiere & After Effect, I'll let you know about the conversion method and any obstacle later in time)..

I want to inspire the urban (or, MTV) youngster the idea of agricultural living especially when they simply don't care where those local rice/potatoes/vegetables are comes from. The biggest achievement will be if we are able to help relief the world food crisis by letting newer (educated) generations to grow food, well, at least the know-how to do it properly (go organic).

More to come!

that't the best reason for wanting to film / buy a camera I've heard in a long time - can't wait to see your movies!

oh if u have questions about the pal/ntsc thing it might be worth asking on the videoblogging list as they'll prob know more about it for web video (in case it's a prob after u buy the camera)

tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging is the mail list page (if you're not already on it)

ok, I'll check them out. Thx!
Too bad the black market US camera is already sold-out this evening, guess we have to wait a little longer.. or I will go for the HDR-SR12E (HDD 120gb PAL) instead, its readily available everywhere but even more expensive.. hundreds $ more to go! :P

Hey Kath, watch my short clip of my brand new SR12E! :) yeah, we have it at last! vimeo.com/2385912
I decided to record in PAL, due to robustness in converting native 25fps into cine-look 24 or to Never The Same Color (NTSC) 30. ;) Thanks for all of your kindness.