One of the coolest little products I saw at CES was the Webbie HD camera from Sony. While I’m not a fan of the name (the manual calls it the Mobile HD Snap which is much better), this pocket sized tapeless cam shoots 30-frame HD video at either 720P or 1080P. It’s clearly targeted to those wanting to upload clips directly from the memory stick to YouTube. Even the name suggests that it captures web-quality video. But it DOES shoot in HD. So what’s the down side? Â What’s the quality really like?
First off, I had planned to shoot the unboxing of a Webbie HD WITH a Webbie HD, but it was too difficult a task to do by myself.  Partially because the camera is surprisingly difficult to handle, and partially because I only have 2 hands. There was also the issue of low light. I have the files if anyone’s interested but they’re hardly worth posting.
Overall, I love the IDEA of this camera. Â It is very small and lightweight and super affordable at $200 MSRP. Â A 90 min charge will give you 90 minutes of record time. Â It records low bandwidth MP4 video on memory sticks and you can store hours of footage on a stick. It’s also very mac compatible. Unlike the Sony HD-RTG1, these clips can be directly copied off the memory stick and played back in quicktime. It’s good to see Sony softening up to the mac a little more.
There is a lot to like about this camera. I think it’s perfect for the parent who wants to keep a tiny camera handy to film the kids, or for the student who wants to film friends and parties, or even for the starving artist film maker who can’t afford a more expensive camera. Â However, in only one day’s use of the camera I’ve already compiled a laundry list of shortcomings and complaints. I’ll cover these annoyances while I take you on a tour of the Webbie. As always, click on the photos to see a much larger version:
The Zoom and Photo buttons are on top of the unit, while the navigation rocker, playback button, and Movie record button are on the back. The rocker is dual purpose. It is used to navigate when in a menu, but otherwise provides alternative functions: display, macro, light, and a timer. Â The light button turns on a small white light on the front of the camera which does a decent job of adding some fill. Â It’s not going to light a distant subject in a dark room but does help illuminate someone closer up. It obviously comes at the cost of reduced battery life.
My beef here is with the placement of the movie record button. It’s primarily a video camera and is a still camera second. The position of the button assumes that the user is going to hold the camera a specific way – overhanded – where you hold the camera hight and your thumb would hits that button. Â It’s just not the way I hold a video camera. Â Especially one that doesn’t have a eye-viewfinder. Â These days I shoot underhanded with the camera lower, looking down on the LCD, so that my thumb rests on the top of the camera.
The LCD panel opens up in the traditional way and of course can be flipped around to film yourself. Â The lens appears to be more significant than in smaller point and shoots. Â And the microphone is in the front.
One negative thing I noticed, and you might be able to pick up on it as well if you download the samples, is that you can hear the inner workings of the camera being picked up on the mic. Things like motor noises during a zoom.  The other thing is the the mic isn’t very good.  For the money it’s easy to justify all of these shortcomings, but they are still important things to keep in mind.
Under the LCD panel are some buttons. These are fairly self explanitory. The negative on these is that they’re a little too recessed and therefore are difficult to push. You almost need to use a fingernail to get them to click.
On the opposite side is a small panel concealing the Audio/Video interface cable, a mini-USB, and a power jack. I gotta toss out a big “Thank you!” to Sony for using a normal mini-USB and not some proprietary plug. There’s nothing worse than realizing that you don’t have that cable with you on a trip. There’s also a small speaker there.  The only negative with this panel is that it pops open a little too easy. In someone’s purse it’s likely going to get lint and other stuff in the plugs.
Next, on the bottom is a small compartment for the memory stick. We’ve put in 16GB sticks and at 720P it offers an amazing 8 1/2 hours of record time or 6000 still photos. So even with a 4GB stick you’ll be looking at 2 hours of record time – which is longer than the battery will last.
Speaking of the battery, Sony went the Apple route with this product and hard wired the battery internal with no way for the consumer to swap it out. It puts this camera in the category of more of a ‘disposable’ item.
Finally, the lens cover is a tiny piece of plastic that will absolutely get lost. You can use the supplied piece of string to tether it to the camera, but then you have a dangling lens cap. I wish they had built in a lens cover, but I suppose that is reserved for more expensive cameras.  The photo below was taken with the camera with the light on. Click to see the full size 5MP image.
This concludes our tour of the hardware. Now lets talk more about the operation and examine the video quality.
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Operation and Video Qualtiy
Which is better 720P or 1080P? I did a side by side test with one camera in 1080P mode and the other in 720P mode and found something interesting. Â 720P has a wider lens than 1080P, meaning that Sony is using a different portion of the sensor for each. Â Check out this sample. While it’s not that interesting of a shot, it shows the difference in the wide angle. The 1080P shot is zoomed in more, which is the opposite of what I expected.
The next thing to compare is the picture quality. The 1080P shot is 1440 x 1080 at around 6 Mbps VBR. The 720P shot is a full 1280 x 720 at around 4 Mbps VBR. Between those two bandwidths, the 720P gives you a slightly better byte/pixel. The 720P picture also looks better as well from a color response and exposure standpoint.
Here’s a pair of unedited source clips for download. These were shot side by side. The camera work is very shaky because I was holding and zooming two cameras at the same time. On the bright side, this does show how the camera handles shake. Left click the images below and download the samples (Download Linked file). The 720P sample is 18MB, the 1080P sample is 26MB. Â If I haven’t made it clear enough yet, I prefer this camera in 720P.
Makes you hungry for In-N-Out doesn’t it?
Focus, Color, Iris and White Balance
These are all set to auto all the time. Sony prosumer video cameras do a very good job in all of these areas when set to auto. This camera does not. The focus floats in and out before settling in on a clear shot. If there’s a lot of motion going on it’s worse. It’s also much worse in 1080P mode than 720P mode, which I believe you can see in the above samples.
Color seems to be washed out a bit, which I suppose is correctable in ‘post.’ Â White Balance is very off and unstable. Notice in the two shots above, captured at exactly the same moment, that one is more purple. Who knows what’s going on there.
The iris clicks in and out of different steps and isn’t smooth at all. Â Again check out the sample above to see these anomalies.
Zoom and Digital Zoom troubles
This model has a 5x optical zoom and a 20x digital zoom. We all know that digital zoom kills your video quality. But the oddity with this camera is that zooming in using the digital zoom is not smooth. It skips and stutters along once you get past the 5x optical. Â Here’s a sample of the digital zoom woes, shot at night. Â It’s about a 10 MB download:
Summary
This camera is what it is. You get what you pay for. Â It’s a low priced, low quality disposable HD camera. The video is highly compressed – but that’s a given. It is what the camera is about.
I want to say this: you can’t fault the camera for the compression part of the picture quality. 720P video compressed into 4Mbps isn’t going to look much better on any camera. Â But there are some elements of the poor picture quality that you CAN fault the camera. The always-automatic settings are slow, over responsive and skip around before settling. Â The focus, iris, color balance all are in constant flux. Â The image sensor is cheap and with any gain at all you can see all it’s defects. One night time shot revealed a burnt pixel, another showed vertical streaking – an indication of over-gaining a cheap image sensor.
But like I said, the camera is what it is. Don’t expect it to be more than a cheap camera to shoot web videos and family picnics. There are many things that I DO like about this camera… here they are in bulleted form:
- It’s very easy to use. There’s not many options so nothing to mess up. I feel like I could give this camera to my 3 year old and she’d be able to use it.
- It turns on when you open the LCD panel, turns off when you close it. Again, this makes it easy to use. When you need to get a quick shot it’s ready to go. Just open the LCD and hit record.
- The camera shoots video in 1080P, 720P and VGA 30P, and photos in 5M, 3:2, 3M, 2M, and VGA. I recommend leaving it in the factory setting of 720P and 5M.
- The light is handy and while not very bright does come in useful in some situations.
- Normal USB port! Â Thanks for that!
- Very compatible MP4 files. You can shoot and upload the clip directly to YouTube and it will stay HD on the web.
- Reasonable 5 megapixel resolution.
Considering that the camera is what it is, the main downsides are:
- No integrated lens cover. The plastic one will get lost.
- All the auto settings are in constant flux – iris, color and zoom never seem to settle.
- 1080P has major auto focus problems
- No flash on the still photos. The light helps but not for still photos.
- Bad position of the Movie record button.
Would I buy one? Â There is another model coming out in a few months, which is even less expensive. Â I think I might pick one of those up for my 3 year old. But for my general needs I’ve got my eye on some Canon cameras.
Hello, thanks for the review. A lot of the reviews (user) have seem to compare this to a $600-$700+ camcorder as opposed to it's competition such as the Flip HD and the Vado HD which are the same or more in price.
Have you had access to either of those and how would you compare the quality to those?
The video in the samples you posted definitely seems washed out a bit, was that all the cameras fault or was the weather cloudy and gray?
Do you have some other still photos you can post?
I actually have one of these ordered, waiting on stock, and I chose this assuming the video quality would he at least as good as the flip, but with stills too, and an optical zoom.
Last question, can the files go right into iMovie for editing without transcoding?
Thanks a lot!
ahhhh….cancel the order !!! (see my post below..)
I can not believe I am saying this but I like the Vado HD better than this (based on this great review).
Ronzoni
"it surprisingly difficult to handle, and partially because I only have 2 hands. "
We call that a tripod! 😛
Thanks for the review!
What iamnotmad said. I think you should compare the cam to low-budget cams not to prosumer models. Compared to its low-budget counterparts, I think it might have an advantage regarding image quality, which I think is very crispy. Although it has the same downsides as shaky footage and almost no manual settings.
whoa!
terrible rolling shutter!!
no way! *pukes*
Michael, IMHO, was kind in his review. I bought the Vado HD and Webbie HD at the same time and returned the Webbie HD @ 15% restocking fee. I did this even when there was no fee on returning the vado HD. (well, – shipping..) My opinions are more critical then Michael's. My main issues were around vid quality.
I can tell you that the Video quality, if shooting in best lighting condition and focus/balance was steady, were on par with Vado HD. However, floating focus/balance was a constant issue as Michael mentions, making the Webbie video annoying to watch. Now, shooting indoor is where the real difference is. Webbie requires very bright lighting to produce acceptable Vid. Shooting indoor with lights bright enough to comfortably read a newspaper, produced very grainy video that looked like a VGA video expanded to 720p screen. On top of this, the floating focus seems to get worst in low light conditions.
On top of every thing else, Webbie has all of the other small usability issues (Lens cap, button location, non swappable Batt, and grrrr memory sticks ??) . It just wasn't acceptable at any price. Video quality just wasn't usable, when I'm shooting mostly indoors. (Most baby vids are…especially around this season)
In contrast, Vado HD produces more than acceptable video in most lighting conditions. Even in a VERY dimly lit parking lot, you can clearly see people walking about and their faces, where Webbie produced almost black screen with lights looking like a bright star in a distant galaxy. All this without floating focus/balance issues. I'm now shooting all of my baby video with Vado HD and it almost always looks great on my 65 inch TV. (thumbs up for HDMI connection too)
P.S. I will give you the only "Thumbs up" for the webbie…. 5x optical. I do miss it on my vado HD…. BTW, search for Webbie HD on Utube. You'll find video to back this up. I've made comments there too.
Thanks for the comments (everyone). I only used them for a couple of days and then had to ship them off. I think if I had more time with it I probably would grow to hate it.
I played with one at the Sony Style store in NYC. Based on the time I spent with it, I think your review was spot on. The "low light" performance (and I mean store lights in a large space) was very weak. Because the intended audience of this camera will likely be using it quite a bit indoors, I would recommend posting those low light samples you shot.
Waiting to see how Pure reacts to the Kodak Z1x. 60P with image stabilization would be great with a price point below $300.
I don't have access to a Flip HD or the Sanyo. If I get ahold of one I'll post a comparison. But in this I tried to keep the perspective that this isn't a Red Camera.
The weather was cloudy and grey. But colors also seem a bit washed out anyway.
I'm not sure about the iMovie transcoding because I've never used iMovie. I'm a FCP guy. But at least you can play the file right in quicktime. Other Sony AVCHD cameras I've played with are not as compatible.
Does this video go right into FCP (I believe FCP and iMovie natively handle the same formats).
Also for your low light shooting did you have the "Low Light" mode on? I notice from sonys site there are a few shooting modes, "Low Light" being one of them.
I should have mine on Tuesday 1/27.
Don't get me wrong I appreciate the review, but there seems to be some important items omitted (not the least of which is the shooting modes).
..So what's the best HD camera that fits in you pocket (at any price) to shoot the kids (indoors) and go-everywhere vacations? Had a canon TX1 which was (just) ok, looking at the $800 sony HD-RTG1 and was hoping these sony webbies were ok…like the Sanyo Xacti HD1000 but again, would really prefer a pocketable form factor.
Yes, it is a good idea to post low light samples
Not bad for some quick porn too!
Hi all, I thought I would post a few points after using the camera for a bit, since I commented earlier.
The good:
~Video quality seemed good, i used 720p and while focus may have been a little slow compared to more expensive cameras, it seemed fine and did not really get in the way.
~No problems with controls, pressing or location, even holding the camera different ways.
~Video light did help when the subject is pretty close.
~No problem keeping the camera steady, but I've read several reports of people with this problem – I had no issue with this.
The bad:
~ video had a yellowish hue indoors
~ as expected the low light performance is pretty poor – not having used a flip or vado I do not know how it compares.
~Still images are nice res, but the camera functionality is nigh useless without a flash indoors, unfortunately. You will get either blur,or yellow tinted photos.
For me sadly, I had to send it back due to my last point. I wanted this to be the one camera I could carry around and take stills or video at acceptable quality, but without a flash indoors the photo feature is not very usable.
If stills are a faaarrr second to you the video quality at 720p is good and should satisfy those looking for something with some zoom, over a flip/vado, or if you want a bigger display.
Oh and the video does go right into iMovie and therefor FCP/FCE.
I have the Flip Mino HD atm, and I'm interested in the webbie since it has a bit more features. But after reading this review im still not sure if I should return my MinoHD and get this, or just keep the Mino.
Can anyone give their opinion on the 2 compared?
I have not had the MinoHD, but I have read the vid quality on the webbie is somewhat better. But you have to weigh that against the extra size. If you don't need still images, or zoom is not a big deal to you, I'd keep the mino for the size difference. If the extra size of the webbie does not bother you, and you want some zoom, the webbie might be a better choice.
I would not switch based on still image capability alone as it's the weakest part of the webbie I think – unless perhaps all of your shooting is outside.
Good luck
Mike: Thanks a million for your great review, I have decided to go with the Creative labs Vado HD. Btw there is a hot smokin deal on Amazon for the Vado. Use promo code MY88J7DV and you get a $100 discount and FREE SHIPPING. Now that’s a deal you cannot ignore.
Keep up the great work
I tried the promo code but it doesn't work
nice review. been looking for one for a while. Thanks for the samples. Really shows the hideous rolling shutter!! I will stick to my Lumix FX37. 720p, no rolling shutter, 10MP, 5x optital zoom and optical image stabilizer. A REAL still camera, and the quality of the video is pretty damn good. And its the same price!
http://www.vimeo.com/3084247
What a joke…. focus in and out, bad light results….sent it back after only one day…. to B&H no restocking fee, but shipping and bad news I had delivered overnight. Good for nothing.
What do you get when you combine progressive scan and a CMOS? A rolling shutter effect and in this case, the video disintegrates when it's panned. Too bad they had to ruin what could have been a marginally-good little camcorder, by using those two features. How were the still photos? Another reviewer said they were surprisingly good. You might wonder why they didn't give an option for using a higher bit-rate. 6 Mbps is just 1/4 of what the newest standard-size AVCHD camcorders use. I'd shoot this at 1080 with 6 Mbps and then convert it to 720 during editing and possibly get better quality.
PLEASE, Could you recommend me a video camera ideal for creating videos to enter a website, preferably to be economical but good quality. Thank you very much
Michael, I can't get your 1080p sample to play in widescreen. All the players I've tried show it scrunched up into 4:3, including WMP,MPC,RP,QT, and AVS. This doesn't happen with any other sources I've played. The 720p plays properly. It would be nice to see some longer clips, showing more of your skills as a camera operator. Hint: Try just one camera at a time. And some still shots, as well.
The point was not to get a job as a camera operator. I shot them both at the same time to show the differences in the way 1080 and 720. So yeah, it's a little shakier than it would be if I wasn't shooting with 2 cameras at the same time. What I posted here is the exact file that came out of the camera. You should be able to right click on it and save the file to your hard drive. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
It’s hard to believe you can get a sony camcorder for under $200. It seems like a couple of years ago it cost me over a grand.
I have a Webbie HD CM1 and it seems that the 1080p video has been given coding about the aspect-ratio, that can't be properly read by playing or editing programs, other than the PMB program that comes with the camera. On other players, the 1080p video is squeezed-up into a 4:3 aspect. The camera does directly play it correctly onto an HDTV.
Because of this, the 1080p video essentially is unusable for sending out on the Web. Look at the 1080p sample Michael has posted on this review, for an example of this. I use Vista Home Premium and I don't know if this aspect-ratio problem is unique to it, but Sony should have made the video compatible, in any case. I'm hoping that a solution to this is found, but if it's not, then Sony will have a lot of trouble with this model. Complaints and product returns will be numerous.
The rolling-shutter problem, caused by the CMOS sensor and the progressive-scan, which results in fluttering and blurring during panning, is bad. The 720p video is surprisingly good, if you keep the camera still or follow a moving subject that stays in the same place in the frame.
This is all standard stuff. It's because their 1080p is 1440×1080, rather than 1920×1080. Same thing goes for many consumer and some professional HD formats. Examples are HDV on the consumer side, and HD-CAM on the professional broadcast video side. It's rare for you to see a true 1920×1080. It's one reason BluRay looks so much better than regular HDTV – or at least sometimes it does.
In the old days (still today) it all had to do with sample rates, not pixels – because the signal ended up analog. The sample rate determined the number of samples (or pixels) per line of video. Different components (parts) of the picture are sampled at different rates (especially still today). So with this 1440 x 1080 deal, that's how many pixels it translates to. But in reality the luma is probably 1440 samples per line, but the color values could be 1/2 or 1/4 that amount. That's where 4:2:2 or 4:1:1 comes from. In these cases, some pixels share color components with neighboring pixels.
When the sample rate lowers, it's still playing that many sample per line back per line.. so your widescreen tv still looks like widescreen tv. It gets more complicated when dealing with 4:3 TV's and 16:9 TV's mixed. For the most part (before HDMI) the TV didn't know what aspect it is being sent and the sender didn't know what aspect the TV was. With HDMI there's 2-way communication that HOPEFULLY gets the correct aspect showing on your TV.
I should do a piece on this someday.
You say : There is another model coming out in a few months, which is even less expensive. What kind of camera is it?
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The PM1 which is only $169, but assume has the same problems as this one. Sony's site on it: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servle…
I think your looking upon this camera too negatively. All professionals film makers would dislike this camera, but an average person like me looking just to make some fun videos with friends would be perfectly happy with it.
Nope. I'm not being too hard on it. It sucks.. at any price. It can't hold focus or exposure. I take quick low-quality videos of my kid all the time. But I'd rather use the movie mode on my pocket still camera (which is also a sony) than this POS. There's no excuse for the problems. They released the camera with bad firmware.
If you want to trust your memories to a camera that can't hold focus in full auto mode then go ahead. But I'm not going to.
Yeah I think your right. I might go with something simple like the Flip Mino HD.
Uh watched the sample videos, the 1080 and 720 were identical video unless he was lucky enough to catch the same exact cars going by… resizing down the 1080 capture to 720 doesn't really show us if the 720 captures and encodes faster. I do hate the fact that when you move quick the buildings and the truck look like they are lopsided probalby because it's so slow to capture scanlines, just like the damn iPhone. Try taking a picture from a moving car, the damn houses look like they are gonna fall over!
This reviewer sucks…
The lopsided effect is called a rolling shutter. And the rolling shutter 'effect' on this camera is bad.
I didn't follow your 1080 vs 720 logic – but I'm not sure you did either.
Notice on those samples that the 1080P is ZOOMED IN from the 720P. Ok.. so if 720P was just a center crop of the 1080P it would be the other way around. See how something weird is going on there? This was shot with 2 cameras at the exact same time.
Er, the videos were identical because as the reviewer says:
> These were shot side by side. The camera work is very shaky because
> I was holding and zooming two cameras at the same time.
my new laptop is 64 bit and isnt compatible with the sony webbie software. I still downloaded the clips from the duo card to my laptop but i cant use windows movie maker or windows dvd maker. It doesnt read trhe mp4 clips. WHY? do i need to format them or something? please help thank you
Does anyone know what software to use to convert the mp4 files to sonething else so i can use windows movie maker? also it has to be a windows vista 64 bit compatible ….thank you
I am very disappointed in this Sony product, MHS-CM1. I shot some video then attempted to shot more I got the memory stick full message with less then 15 minutes of footage, then a memory format error message this happen several times each time I reformatted the memory stick I lost all my video and pictures. This wouldn't been so bad if I was at home, this happen on a trip to Iceland. Not wanting to miss out on the awesome scenery and action I purchased another memory stick at twice the price than in the USA. The problem persisted. Can’t comment on the picture/video quality never got any out of this piece of junk. Thanks Sony for this piece of made in China crap
I had the same problem (twice) with memory stick format messages. I lost all my recordings both times (the second time it was on my daughter’s graduation ceremony, fortunately I had my “regular” camcorder and another picture camera). For the price, I would accept other shortcomings, but this one “destruction of memory cards” cannot be excused).
My advice is : do not buy it!
WTF???
are you comparing this camcorder to a Canon ?
You are fucking insane !!, with all do respect..!!!!
i mean, the least expensive Canon camcorder is $800, which is 4 times more than this camcorder !!
Plus, believe it or not ….i prefer using this camcorder to a Canon, as all Canon camcorder record 1080i interlaced HD, which sucks, and outdated !
im not going to pay $800 to record interlaced !!
Canon records 30p but not true progressive, so its pretty much a gimmick.
I've narrowed it down, either i buy this, or Sanyo FH1
Dude, read the article and the other comments. I'm not comparing this camera to anything. I'm just saying that there's no reason Sony had to make this camera suck. A few simple adjustments in the firmware could correct these problems. My Sony STILL camera shoots better video than this. This thing can't hold a zoom! It' can't hold an exposure! Those are basic functions that should just work and not constantly adjust in and out.
The camera sucks – that's it. $200 or $2000 or $20 – it sucks.
If you're thinking of the Sanyo I'd go with the Sanyo. Download the test shots and play around with them. These are the actual files that I took off the camera – not modified in any way.
Can i use it as a wabcam…. if so then how to configer it??
plz reply soon.
no idea. my guess is you'd want something different for that
I got the Webbie CM1 not because of the quality, brand, form factor…but because it's the only one that offers a 5X OPTICAL zoom. that was important. 1080p file did not run smoothly on my PC, but 720 is good enough for my needs
is there any way you can put a fisheye lense on this camera
Hi Mike.
The Review was great about the Sony Webbie HD MHS-CM1. But i am right now facing severe error like “format error”. since the memory whenever inserted in the Handycam, it shows me the error. But to your surprise, this same memory card wroks good with any computer. Can you or anyone can give me a solution to solve this error. I am very frustated by this error. Please suggest me a fix.
thanks in advance.
Well, having it work in a computer but not in the camera isn't as bad as having data on it that you can't get off. Obviously get all your data backed up. I'm not an expert on this camera, I just gave my impressions of it. I'd try basic troubleshooting techniques to narrow down the problem.
1. if a different memory card works fine in the camera you know it's the memory card. if a different memory card does not work in the camera you know it's the camera.
2. if it's the camera – take it to a sony style store or call sony for repair. I bought the return replacement warranty on mine.
3. if it's the memory card – first be thankful because memory cards are fairly cheap. You can try reformatting the memory stick in another camera to see if that fixes it. But overall your data is more important than anything. don't risk using that mem stick again and then having it fail on the computer too.
S'all I got.
i have been using this cam for around 9 months. It was ok.all downsides i experienced. but lastly the bad thing happened. LCD screen became white! so i can not see what i am shooting!!!i called technical service they told me to send it to texas. I sent it i am not sure when and how(condition) i will get it back?
I got this camera primarily as a web camera to stream concerts etc.I ubderstand there are quality issues,but none of them matter, because I can not get it to work as a web cam.
If anyone knows how to make this work, let me know – otherwise it's going back in 2 days.
Thanks –
Mine has a flash, the light flickers VERY brightly when using it too. I just plugged it in at a local outlet (got mine for $69 new), and I was impressed at it.
My downside of it is the LCD screen fades out at the top and on the left, the 2 spots a "camera man" will use when handling the camera.
For the problem of no manual views, I am working on adding one, as well as a handle.
Might post up instructions on the mod, making it simple, easy, and VERY cheap.