From what I've leaned from this forum the way to go is to first decide on a housing .
If you go for an electronic controls housing you have a lot more options against mechanical controlled ones. If you decide on an electronic controls housing, what I suggest you do, Sony camcorders are compatible with most of the electronic controlled housings. Now, the problem is that from what I've learned HC96 has a problem with LANC input, plus it doesn't have a mic input .
Another drawback in my opinion is the vertical setup of the camcorder.
To be more specific, if you go for this camcorder and get a housing for it, if later on you want to upgrade to a better camcorder you might be stuck because all new Sony camcorders come in a horizontal setup like HC5 or HC7 .
I hope this will help.
Good luck
Paul
