Camcorder Reviews

These are great tapes. You can record in EP with little, if any, quality loss. Plus they are very durable so they will last a long time. Taping TV shows is one of my hobbies and I've figured out that Sony is really the best buy.

Excellent method for transfering your videos to your computer for editing and making CD's. The i.Link cable is easy to use. Make sure you order the right cable. I ordered the wrong cable a 4 pin to 4 pin which I believe only works if you have a Sony computer. Most other computers like my Dell will probally need the 6 pin to 4 pin cable.
Also make sure your computer has the capability before ordering. i.LINK is also known as Firewire and IEEE-1394.
It does provide excellent high speed quality video transfers.

I had found that these tapes are among the most reliable and inexpensive I could find

I recently purchased this camcorder after our school's arrived and I had a chance to give it a test-drive. I have big hands so I thought some of the buttons would be awkward... not so.

The film looks great, it is easy to use, the still images are of high quality (I put off getting a digital camera to buy this figuring I now have both). You can manually focus when you want to, the lens is of very high quality and there are wide angle and other lens available.

Remember to order a memory stick with some punch and mini-dv cassettes... I live in bush Alaska and it was hard to wait for cassettes and memory to arrive (the 8 memory stick is a joke... 15 pictures or about 30 sec of film).

The only problem I have had with this is sometimes the screen is hard to see in bright light... I'll see if this drives me crazy this summer.

I do not like the program that came with it, but i-movie and i-photo will work great so that is not a problem. It is good that you don't have to use the program that came with it since I had trouble with it. The tech. person from our school found it strangely configured and also opted not to use it.

of this camera. I had been looking for a digital camcorder to replace our analog one. My main criteria was it had to be small, so that we would take it almost anywhere (unlike the old clunky one). After much research, we decided to get either the Sony DCR-PC101 or the Canon Elura 40MC. Even though, the Sony cost more, we picked it since our digital camera is a Sony. I got a great deal at Sears on an open box product ... and it came with the full warranty. I have used it a couple times and I absolutely love it. The software (pixela) could be more user friendly, but I will probably get bundled software with a 1394 card that I will buy. Some folks complain about the small buttons, but hey, you can't put big buttons on a camcorder that fits into your pocket!

You've come this far. You just need a little nudge. Buy it. I did all of the research, and am pretty picky. For this price, there is nothing better, or more fun.

I have been using the GL1 for nearly 3 years now. I take it out on shoots for a website I work on... sometimes I create QuickTime Movies, sometimes I take stills from footage and convert the stills to .JPG files.

The 30-lux capacity means you can walk into a subdued lighting environment such as a dining room lit by a single candle and get very good, balanced exposure. It is not like an infrared camera or anything, however... there must be SOME non infrared light, or you get nothing.

The 30x zoom can't be beat. You can be 50 yards away from a person and zoom in and get a shot of their nose... in many ways, it must be seen to be appreciated.

Considering the features, the unit is light-weight, but newer digital camcorders of similar strengths are now on the market for far less and weigh half as much. Still, the GL1 is easy to hold with one hand while using the eye piece or the LCD panel.

I only have a few criticisms. For one, the unit does not ship with a firewire cable. If you are ordering this item for its firewire compatibility, you will need to order a 6-to-4 pin firewire cable separately. (6-pin for your Mac, 4-pin for the GL1).

Also, the GL1 has a tendency to eat tapes. For a while, I thought I was just getting deffective tapes, but a co-worker got a DV deck and the deck was able to view and use the tapes without difficulty. Just viewing the tapes on the DV deck seemed to "fix" whatever the GL1 perceive was wrong with the tapes. On occasion I will get an all red "WARNING: EJECT TAPE" display on the LCD panel... I then eject the tape, rewind it a bit on the DV deck and then I can use it fine for several weeks w/ the GL1. This has been a problem from day one and I have head-cleaning tapes.

The unit has a tripod screw mount on the bottom and a hot shoe on top, so it's a good piece of hardware for professionals.

The battery that ships with the unit will only run for about 30 minutes on a full charge... but that's 30 minutes of actual recording, rewinding, etc. I highly recommend getting an additional 2 hour battery as back-up, especially if you're stuck somewhere and don't have the luxury of having an AC wall socket nearby. You can run the camera straight off AC power, but it is awkward... you must run the cord from the GL1 to the charger and the charger is then plugged into the wall. This extra cord does not come with the unit and you must buy it separately. It would have been nice if they had included this cord as well as a DC charger for the car.

Back when I was ordering this item, I spoke with Canon directly to ask them information about the firewire capabilities, etc. Afer speaking to a customer service rep. for over 1 hour, it was obvious that the folks answering the phones for Canon absolutely know NOTHING about their own products or terminology used in photography or videography... if the answers are not in the little book in front of them, they are worse than uninformed... they tell you the wrong information. If you want more information about the features of this camera, seriously examine the specs featured here on Amazon and read all of the reviews.

This is by far the best camera for this price range. HOWEVER don't pay more than 2100-2200$US for it. I bought it for even less than that. Its size at first gives it the appearance of being a "home-video" recorder and not quite the sleak professional look that the XL1 has. However don't be fooled by this, it uses the same CCD system as the XL1, and just lacks the removable lens option in addition to a handful of other digital features. But the GL1 costs 70% less and produces very high quality images and video. Its size makes it VERY easy to carry around (just last weekend I saw someone with one at a bar in San Francisco). Its a great value and a great product, just hunt around and read up on it to make sure its what you want. Because Looks are VERY deceiving, this isn't your dad's old mini-betacam...this is a beautifully engineered camera that produces high quality results.

I bought this camera about 10 months back, and at the time made a compromise in choosing it because I couldn't afford the XL1S. What I've learned though after using it for so long now is that Canon didn't compromise on this camera. The GL1 has essentially every feature the aspiring film maker or video professional needs to get underway quickly and easily.

My favorite feature of this camera is the frame mode ability that allows you to shoot non-interlaced video, with results that are very similar in appearance to film rather than video. After shooting in frame mode and seeing the results, I've yet to shoot interlaced video again.

The one thing that this camera lacks is any ability to manually control the audio levels for the internal or external mics, which can sometimes give you less than optimal results in situations where the noise volume fluctuates noticably, or where you are trying to achieve a specific audio effect.

Summary - Excellent camera worth the price tag. Across the board, far more features and better quality than all competitors in its class. Probabaly the only camera that can top the GL1 in this class is the GL2.

The software mentioned on my May 16th review IS called "AVID Xpress" -- not "AVID Express" -- when my review was edited someone changed the spelling, possibly thinking it was a typo/mistake?

The TRV-900 is, by far, the best camcorder you can buy short of a professional model. The picture quality blows away the competition (must be those 3 CCD's). In most cases, you won't be able to tell the difference between the TRV 900 and professional cameras costing several times its price. The TRV-900 has every feature a consumer could want, including a progressive scan mode that lets you take high quality still pictures and save them directly to tape or a flash memory card (not included). You can also capture still images from tape and save them on a floppy disk (drive included) or flash card.

The LCD screen is large and bright. The menu controls are easy to use once you decipher the manual (see below). Sound quality is noticeably better than other camcorders I have used. Low light performance is great. For those who are interested, all automatic exposure, white balance and focus functions can be overriden and controlled manually.

On the down side, the unit is a bit heavier and a bit larger than most other mini-dv camcorders. You have to open the lcd screen to reach the button that activates the menu controls. The camcorder comes with a very nice lens hood, but it is threaded in such a way that you cannot install a filter between the lens and the hood - you have to install filters in front of the hood thereby increasing the risk of glare. Finally, the manual was obviously translated from Japanese and is full of annoying little errors.

But these are all minor shortcomings that do nothing to detract from the amazing picture quality and features. In summary, if you are looking for a Mini DV camcorder and can afford this one, then you need look no further.

You want it - you got it. Excellent picture quality; Sony steady-shot that really works; still-image capture to tape (or extra adapter card+memory stick a must!); bright LCD display; variable audio feedback; IEEE firewire, controls that are easy to reach and are learned-responses for those familiar with previous Sony cams.

Specifically, we use this unit for green-screen compositing of people, environments, and virtual products. The firewire coupled with Adobe Premier is a god-send. Simply said, that is essentially all you need (plus consistent overall lighting in a green-screen environment). G3 or PC - firewire will suck it down as fast as anything I've seen.

Positively get the custom aluminum case if you do a lot of travel and want to keep your camera happy. This will keep all your components safe and somewhat easily accessible. Get a 2+ hour battery; the NP-750 battery has plenty of gas - surprisingly the LCD does not drain the juice too quickly. A PC transfer card for the memory stick would be nice - but you can get away with plugging the IEEE and transferring from memory card or to tape.

The construction and attention to product detail is marvelous. Little rubber covers, positive audio clicks, all the nifty nick-nacks want you to have Sony make your next car. Sure there are a few quirks - but there's few products that have such high quality and high value as the TRV900!

My wife purchased a Sony camcorder model DCR-TRV-103 in the summer of 2000 and gave it to me as a gift for to take on our 25 day tour of Europe in September ,2000. After familiarizing myself it I never had a reason to use it until on our trip. About half way into the trip the unit failed in Rome , Italy with about two weeks left on our tour. After returning home I sent it to a Sony Service Center near St. Louis and received it back about a month later. I did not use it again until the following August for about 15 min. to record a Christening at our church and it Worked o.k. I didn't use it again until Christmas day to record our last holiday in our present home .All our family was present. After nearly an hour I checked to see if the cassette had finished and I was shocked to see it had failed with the same exact failure as the first .I believe it should have held up longer than two hours of recording time since the repair but not so. Now Sony refuses to make the repair good ...

I have had this camera for about 3 months, and I am very satisfied with the quality of the camera itself (not surprising from Sony), and the quality of the results. Considering the resolution (500 lines, compared to 240~260 for VHS & 400 for S-VHS, both of which are analog), I don't really see any great advantage to going with DV technology, except that a full digital camera is a bit lighter and the fact that you can record up to 2 hours on a DV tape, compared to 1 hour on either 8mm or Hi8 tape. I use both tapes, by the way, and there is no readily noticeable difference in quality. As far as the weight, since I do a lot of handheld recording, I find that I like this one better because a lighter camera is more difficult to keep steady. The recording sound quality is very good also, as well as being able to record in darkness! The ONLY, and I mean ONLY thing about this camera that bothers me is the fact that more of the on-camera controls are not duplicated on the remote control, such as fades, backlight, etc. I do a lot of active videography, and even though I have a very steady hand, it's very hard not to jiggle the camera when trying to turn on a fade or the backlight or one of the picture processing modes. Other than that, I would highly recommend this camera to anyone.

We purchased this camcorder after doing research for severalweeks. We bought it with scuba diving in mind as eventually we willbuy the expensive underwater housing.

I can only say that I have been extremely happy with my purchase. One of the first events I captured was my girlfriends little sisters HS graduation. The picture quality and sound play back especially during music performances was great.

We did but a 8 hour battery which added a little weight but runs for seems like forever. We also bought the telephoto lens for those really far away shots.

I normally turn off the digital zoom unless I have an extremely steady hand or have it on a tripod. As you get into the higher zooms if the camera is shaking the pictures gets unusable. Put it on a tripod and at full digital zoom it almost looks as good as optical zoom.

I've used it to capture pictures and then pass this to my computer and have been very happy with the special effects as well.

Robert

I owned Sony analog camcorder for long time. Recently I bought this one for digital storage and compact size.

I am suprised to see very poor quality video compare to my old analog camcorder. video is really dark and not worth taking in home(Even on bright day). I continue use old analog camcorder for family video.

The DCRHC20 was not one of the camcorders on my shopping list, but that changed the minute I picked it up. It is small and lightweight(about 1lb), and by that I mean I can hold this thing all day without getting a cramp in my arm. Compared to the Sony 8mm I used in the past, the video quality on this blows it away in every way. The night shot is beautiful, outside shots are crisp and vibrant, and the indoor video is easily adjusted to compensate for lack of light. I have only played the video back on the TV so far, and it looks and sounds amazing! A hot shoe is on this thing to accept a video light, microphone etc. Sony thought of everything. All of the hookups are there for the VCR, computer, or whatever you want to hook thing in to. I have not tried the included software so I cannot comment on it at this time.

It is a wonderful camcorder if you want it small, easy to use, and packed with many other features that I don't have time to list. You can't go wrong with this one, see for yourself, and have fun with it.

i figured i would review it since Amazon's reviews have always helped me in the past. I am going from an old Canon 8mm, so this is my first DV camcorder. First, it is very small, in a good way. It feels solid, but not bulky. The controls are very responsive and fast. The LCD uses a touchscreen menu, i wasn't sure i would like it, but it's great. Since the menu can change with every screen, you aren't limited by a few buttons. It also has an integrated manual lens cover. The charger plugs directly into the camera, so no bulky chargers either.

The quality is good, but again, i haven't done anything more than a few test shots. I already have a 4MP digital camera, so i didn't care about photos and i didn't want to buy into Sony's Memory Stick scam. Apparently after a photo, it records 7 seconds of sound. Quite annoying.

My goal is to shoot vids of my kids and burn them to DVD with my PC. The camera comes with all the cables you need, except the firewire/IE444?/I-link cable. You can do USB transfer, but i've heard its not as good as firewire. I am very happy with this purchase and plan on keeping it.

I've bought Energizer replacement rechargeable batteries for both my S30 and my digital video camera and have found them to actually hold a longer charge and a longer battery life than the originals that came with the cameras. The going rate for the Canon NB-2L seems to be from $50 - $70. You can get the Energizer equivalent for $27 at one of my favorite sites. It's definitely not a generic and considering what Canon is charging for theirs, I consider it a no-brainer. I've never had any problems with the non-OEM batteries I've used, but I've never used generic batteries either.

By the way, I love my S30 and consider it one of the best buys I've ever made in my life. I've had it over 2 years now and the picture quality it produces still amazes me.

I have a Canon S30, and I am still using my original canon NB-2L battery. I also bought 3 additional generic batteries as spares. Of these 3 generics, one would not fully charge after 3 weeks, second one just died completely (seller would not offer refund or replacement. Now I am left with the 3rd generic and my original. Both are working fine still (the generic is 650Mah and actually allow me to use my camera for a longer time than the originals.

My review is just to share my experience with generic batteries versus original. Personally I would recommend buying the orginal since two of my generics died...and I always take good care of my belongings, so it's about quality control problems...

However, if you have to resort to generic (currently running at around 15-20 per battery) I wish you all are lucky to get a good one! (try to find seller that offer 1 yr warranty)

There's a common message here folks. The Canon batteries last. I bought a 900 mAh for $12.99, guaranteed for a year. After 3 months it died. Then the place I bought it from refused to replace it. My original Canon battery is not holding a full charge but it is a year old and works better than my fancy new powerful one. I wish I would have read these reviews before I purchased a generic. I just ordered 2 new Canon brand batteries from a reputable source.

I did not buy my TRV22 from Amazon but from Circuit City due to their great return policy I had originally bought a Canon Zr70mc and within 2 hours I took it back because it needed a tremendous amount of light for indoor filming and even then it was very grainy. So I upgraded to the Sony TRV22 and what a difference, now filming indoors is not a problem the Sony does not need much light usually a table lamp is now plenty and there is very very little if any graininess to the picture. The picture quality for outdoors is fantastic.. Yes in bright light the LCD screen can be hard to see but most LCD's are hard to see in bright light. I don't feel the wind noise is an issue but that's me. As for uploading and downloading the video to computer is a snap... plug the camera into the firewire or USB port and Windows XP will see that it's a Sony camera and configure itself automatically and it's ready to go. I have not tried the still capabilities because I have digital camera. The Nightvision works, its neat to play with but I probably won't use it much. The menus are easy to navigate and the touch screen is a intresting idea but it works pretty good. The camera must have a noise cancellation feature because it does not pickup its own motor noise which is very quiet to begin with. The supplied battery is good for about 80 minutes with the LCD on. I made a short test video and used Nero 6 to burn it to DVD format and everything went smoothly and the quality was just as good as the tape. Overall I am very happy with the Sony TRV22...I hope this review will help somebody who is researching on buying a new camera....

Pros: Compact and lightweight; spot metering with selectable spot area; flexible low-light features.

Cons: Hard to see LCD in daylight; fairly narrow-angle lens; bottom-loading tapes; no wind filter.

Summary: I purchased this camera immediately after returning a Canon ZR65MC. The problems I had with that camera were very poor quality video under normal indoor lighting conditions. With that experience fresh in mind, I tested the TRV-22 under the same conditions and found the results that I would expect from any decent digital camcorder: crisp, low-noise images far superior to those of the Canon. So to compare the two, I think the extra $90 I paid for the Sony is well worth it. I then took the camera on a mini-vacation, which is a more realistic test. I found the camera extremely easy to use - every family member was able to pick it up and start recording with no explanation. I took some video under poor lighting conditions, such as indoors on a cloudy day with a bay window as a backlight, and was very surprised later when I reviewed the footage and found that it was pretty good despite that. The final test was to capture the video to my PC using the IEEE-1394 interface. The video was captured flawlessly andthe resultant AVI is as sharp as any I've seen. To sum it up, I think I got my money's worth and then some with this camera. A digital camcorder should provide a high quality image, and this camera is the best I've ever owned. Add to that the abundance of cool features and you can't go wrong. The ONLY thing negative I can say is that the still image resolution is too low to replace a dedicated DSC. But unless you want to cough up a few more bucks for the TRV-33, you'll just have to carry two cameras like I do.

Factors important to us in selecting this product, in roughly this order, were:
* it uses MiniDV tapes, which I preferred to DVDs and CDs and other media because of resolution, cost, and ease of use
* it uses the same memory sticks as our still camera
* it includes an A>D coverter - that is, it has an input so I can connect our VCR and transfer old VHS tapes (like our honeymoon) to DVD; to do that otherwise would have meant a 100-200 dollar device added to the camera or our PC
* it includes 3 forms of digital output (S, USB, and firewire) so that I can transfer the memory stick and miniDV to a PC, for storage and backup and uploading and DVDs
* it had a good lens (Carl Zeiss) and 8x optical zoom (digital zoom isn't the same; it just stretches the pixels)* it got great reviews, including from Marco
* it has decent still resolution, but we didn't expect to rely on it for stills; paying for still resolution is expensive (about 100 bucks per megapixel in a still camera, more in a video camera)
* it was on sale at Circuit City, with a free extra battery, camera bag, and light lens (although that was last fall)

Things not to be fooled by, if you look at other products:
* digital zoom
* some models with a higher resolution (e.g. the TRV33) actually do poorer in low light *and* dont handle motion as well
* an included light (built-in lights are apparently a heat problem, and a better attachment is under 20 bucks)
* a bigger viewfinder (ours is 2.5"; smaller would have been okay; bigger would have been silly)
* paying too much for still resolution (1 to 2 megapixels is more than enough for email, websites, and small prints; 5 megapixels is a waste unless you're printing portraits)