I have a lot of Sony stuff. Sony Vaio computer, cell-phone, Clie PDA, video camera. One of the things I had liked about the sony was the memory stick. My cell phone also functions as a walkman (you can all sorts of neat things in Japan). It is basically an MP3 cell phone. I can downlowd my music onto my memory stick via computer and then listen to it on my cell phone or my PDA when I am out and about. I like it. For those two things it is great.

So when it came to getting a video camera, of course I am going to get Sony and will have the same ease of downloading files! Yeah, right. I am a neophyte as far as tech goes and it shows. As far as working my video camera, the memory stick is great. Light and reuseable. I paid about $120 to get the 256 megabite stick (about 40 minutes of recording time and I can erase the crappy stuff on the spot and get that recording time back right away). So if all is working with my camera, what is wrong? Well, the fact that I can't take my memory stick from my video camera and put it in the computer and transfer files. I still need to use the USB. While it's not articularly a big deal, it's also not what is supposed to be good about memory stick.

Oh, and I like this part, the memory stick is supposed to be formated for the computer but if I do that, I may not be able to use it in the video camera according to the instruction manual. And as far as that stupid editing program that came with my video camera, it won't directly read memory stick for either audio or video (and I have both kinds) even though there is that option. I could always format the sticks for computer (which I don't have to do if I am using Sony Sonic Stage for music) but why would I potentially waste a couple hundred dollars to make my sticks unusable for the things it currently works for.

Obviously, I am experiencing a little frustration. I like Sony products and their customer service, but they need to smarten up their tech. I am going to have to get more help. Maybe it isn't as bad as it seems.