Sony HDR-SR11E (60 GB) Hard Drive Camcorder

I have been studying and looking for HD Camcorders for over 2 years and finally purchased this Sony HDR-SR11. I just got done converting my Hi-8 and digital-8 tapes to DVD and I didn't want to go through that process again. In my honest opinion, for the money, this is one of the best HD camcorders on the market. It has all the features you could ever need and it also gives you a full 1080i HD recording. Picture quality when watched on my plasma is excellent using either the AV component or even better with the HDMI cables. Some of the features are: "Quick On" standby feature that saves on battery use and you can go to recording mode in one second. It has a zoom option for the mic which does a good job picking up voices. All the jacks you will need are on this camcorder: Power, Mini HDMI, USB, A/V to Component, External MIC and Head Set, and it has a built in speaker, good enough only for monitorung. It has the ability to quickly change from video recording to picture taking and also capture still images from the video. It is a rare HD camcorder to have both a viewfinder and a LCD panel. The viewfinder is nice for outdoor video or pictures in bright sunlight when you can't see the LCD. Even though it has a high resolution LCD panel it washes out in the sun. The touch panel on the LCD os a nice feature, no more flipping through menus with buttons. The LCD shows you the minutes of recording time left. When the camcorder is off you can press the DISP/BATT button and it shows you the percent of charge left. When watching video via the LCD you can press the same button to hide icons andindicators.
There are a few let downs: Sony included editing software is always limited and confusing. The best software for AVCHD that i found is be Sony Vegas Pro. They should bundle that with their camcorders. Sony has the charger built into the camera so the battery needs to be attached to the camcorder to charge it. You have to buy a separate charger. No direct transfer to a backup hard drive. You have to use a laptop on trips or buy a lot of Memory Stick Pro Duo cards to back up video on the fly.
Also, this HD camera did not come with an HDMI cable to connect it to a HDTV - without it no HD quality playback could be done. For ten bucks i bought a standard mini HDMI to HDMI cable.
Overall this is a great camera with lots of options and possibilities