I bought this camera and after 40 days it developed a fault. I contacted Sony Service Centre in London, who after keeping it for 5 weeks explained that they could not repair NTSC Models in the UK and I would have to send it to the US for repair. I suggested that they should do that but no. I returned to the US and took the camera to one of their service centres who said that I would have to pay $216 labour charges as it was now over 90 days old.
After a great deal of hassle they eventually agreed to give me a work order to have this charge waived. I then sent it to Sony in PA and although I have been informed that it has been repaired I still am awaiting its return over 6 months after purchase. Just be sure you realise that the 12 month warranty only applies to parts, the labour warranty is 90 days, it is in the small print but easily overlooked. This review may not be helpful to everyone but if one person is helped then great.

This is a great camcorder, but it is impossible to use because you cannot get the video onto your Mac. For those of you that use a PC for video editing (yeah, right...) and don't mind using Sony's proprietary Movie Shaker program to do your editing instead of something like Premier (again, yeah, right), you will find this camera wonderful. But for the rest of us, Sony needs to take steps to open up this format or support the camcorder on the most popular digital video platform (Mac).

Apart from this issue, I guess it is a great buy. If I would use a PC, it would be on the top of my wishlist.