Sony Handycam DCR-DVD405: Test Footage

The Sony Handycam DCR-DVD405 was part of the company's 2006 lineup of Handycam camcorders, along with it came the DCR-DVD805. The DVD405 and DVD805 are identical to one another. The units featured a 3.31 megapixel image sensor (with a effective pixel count of 2.05 megapixels for 4:3 video recording, and 2.06 for 16:9). The lens on this unit (paired with its 1/3-inch CCD image sensor) has been quite pleasant to work with, offering a rather attractive, shallow depth of focus, the user can definitely make use of the unit in both urban and wildlife applications.

The camcorder has honestly been a pleasure to work with, with the exception being the obvious: The 8cm DVDs are pricey, and if the user wants the highest quality, the discs will only hold 20 minutes of video. Along with that, the unit also emits the typical sounds of the DVD drive spinning and writing to the disc itself, which is audible in the recording at times. There was an optional bluetooth microphone available (ECM-HW1) for the DCR-DVD405 and 805 (and the higher-end DCR-DVD505), which likely would have negated that issue.

The unit also uses Sony's infolithium "P" series batteries, which means it's compatible with the "V" and "H" series batteries as well, adding to user convenience.