Despite endless fiddling with turning on and off options, including to record modes, "Smooth Slow Motion" is NEVER an option I can play with. It is ALWAYS grey and unavailable.

Argh!!!!

Hey John,

Take a look a page 105 of the Z7U operating guide. There is a section on "Menu items are grayed out or do not work". It mentions that smooth slow record wont work if:

[REC TYPE] of [HDV PROGRE.] is set to [PROGRESSIVE].
[REC TYPE] of [HDV PROGRE.] is set to [INTERLACE] and [SCAN TYPE] is set to [24], [24A] or [30].
[SCAN TYPE] of [DV PROGRE.]is set to [24] or [30].

[REC CTL MODE] of [EXT REC CTRL] is set to [EXT ONLY].

During [COLOR BAR].

I remember having the same problem as you and it turned out my [REC CTL MODE] menu was set to [EXT ONLY] (as I never record to tape). Anyway, make sure your menu settings are NOT set up as listed above and you should be good to go.

You sir kick soooooo much ass!

Thanks a mil.

Glad you got it sorted out!

Same thing with taking stills onto a memory stick. I think I went through testing about 4-6 sticks before I came onto this board & someone pointed out the interlace & shutter settings that disable the still photo feature.

I love my Z7U, but there are a few things that I just go "Come on! Why'd you do that Sony?!?"

I can kinda guess that the slow motion thing might have been hard to do in progressive for their engineers, but still photos are always progressive & shoot one frame at a time, so why do those settings matter.


Also: be aware that the slow motion isn't as high as quality as "normal" and the quality goes down if you choose the longer bursts. IE 3sec is better than 6sec is better than 12sec. But depending on what you're shooting, the 12sec burst might be exactly what you need.