I'm a little confused by the HC7's standby mode. It seems like the camera sort of "goes to sleep" while in standby after about 3 minutes. The green STBY message at the upper center of the screen disappears. When you press the record button, the STBY message reappears and begins flashing. Then, about 4 seconds later, recording actually begins.

Is this what you're experiencing on your HC7? I've already missed a few shots because of the time required to wake the camera up and take it out of a 3+ minute standby. Is there a setting to increase the time before it goes into this sleep mode? I couldn't find any mention of this operation in the manual. Thanks.

Pretty much all cams spin down the heads after a few minutes to save wear on the tape and heads. It's usually not adjustable, as far as I know. You can keep the cam from shutting down completely, as some do, but not from going into post-standby "snooze" mode.

Thanks Adam and you're right. The manual describes the auto shut off feature on page 62. As you said, it can't be adjusted. It can only be turned off. The time is really about 3 minutes, not 5 minutes as the camera and manual states.

Also on page 62 there's an explanation of the Quick Record feature. I turned it on, and it reduced the recording lag coming out of "off" mode substantially, maybe by 1/2. I didn't notice any problem with Quick Record on so far, so I'm leaving it on for the moment.

The manual describes the auto shut off feature on page 62. As you said, it can't be adjusted. It can only be turned off. The time is really about 3 minutes, not 5 minutes as the camera and manual states.

Also note they are two different things. The heads stop spinning after about 2:30 or 3:00 and the STBY icon goes away but the cam stays powered up. If AUTO SHUT OFF is left at the default setting, then the whole cam powers down and shuts off after about 5 minutes, and you need to slide the POWER rocker switch back to OFF and then to ON again to wake it up. If A. SHUT OFF is set to NEVER, then the cam stays powered up forever (or until your battery dies), even though it is not in STBY mode and it'll take longer to begin recording -- but you can wake it up just by pressing the REC button.

At least that's how it works on my HC3, which I assume is similar to the 7. On that very same page 62, the very last paragraph talks about the post-standby "snooze" as opposed to complete shut-off. But you gotta love their English: "to prevent from unnecessarily battery exhausting."

Adam,
Oops, looks like I shouldn't have ignored the fine print and thanks for the correction. I confused Auto Shutoff with the "drum stop mode" (for the lack of a better name). My HC7 does a complete power off at 5 minutes as long as its running on the battery.

It would have made more sense if the manual would have described the 3 minute drum stop mode as a sequence in the Auto Shutoff paragraph description, rather than showing it as a tip in a small font at the bottom of the Quick Recording section.