Summary: My parents loaned me their Sony Digital 8 camcorder when my son was born, but now it's being passed on to my brother. We didn't want to miss recording our Christmas memories so began looking for one of our own.
Once we ruled out buying a DVD camcorder (due to cost), we didn't have a clue what was left. So after a trek to the store to see what different models looked liked, we realized a few things.
I wanted a camcorder with:
1. A viewfinder that rotates up and down. Many just move in and out.
2. Physical buttons for playback functions (play, rewind, etc.). Touchscreen LCD models bury these options in their menu.
My husband went to the library to see if Consumer Reports could help us. This model is their Best Buy. The article included a picture which clearly showed the very features that were important to me. Yeah!
Zoom- Another neat feature is that there is a line on the bar when you zoom so that you know where the optical zoom ends, and avoid the digital zoom if you want to. The digital zoom isn't going to get you a better picture. It's like zooming in on a picture on a computer, eventually you just get a bunch of pixels.
Tapes- Hi8 tapes are a less expensive medium than miniDV or DVD. I can also use our camcorder to view the tapes we already have.
Weight- Compared to most models out there today, this is considered to be heavy, but compared to the one we were using this is probably half the size.
Picture quality- I think there is a 10% improvement in miniDv over Digital 8, compared to a 50% improvement in Digital 8 over Hi8. A neat thing about Sony is they offer 0 Lux, which means that you can videotape in the dark and still see what's going on. It was great for seeing my son's reaction to fireworks on the 4th of July.
Connectivity- This model has S-video and USB capabilities, although a cable isn't provided for the S-video. If you want to do editing on your computer or burn on a DVD you will need a Firewire port on your computer. There is a Burn DVD button behind the LCD with the playback buttons. We figure that the money we saved buying this camcorder can go toward a DVD burner.
Recording- There is a button you can press to have the tape moved to the right spot to avoid overlap or blank areas if you ejected the tape or used playback buttons.
Still pictures- This model can take stills on the tape, but it doesn't have a memory stick. This translates to not the greatest picture quality, but even the DVD camcorder only had 1 Megapixel.
There is a sister model to this one, the TRV460, which you should consider if:
- you have Hi8 or 8mm tapes that you want to view.
- you want a touchscreen LCD. (A neat feature of this is that you can touch the screen and it will adjust the focus or exposure to that spot.)
I would recommend this camcorder to those who want a quality video camera but can't or don't want to spend much on it.
I may comment again after I've had a chance to use it awhile.
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