Kelli217's Full Review: Sony CCD-TRV138 Hi-8 Analog Camcorder
The Sony CCD-TRV138 is probably one of the least expensive camcorders on the market today. I purchased mine in February of 2005 at Wal-Mart for under $250. But there's a reason it comes at such a price.
It's an analog camcorder, with no digital features at all. That means that you can't use it to download your old Video8 and Hi-8 footage to your computer for editing and possibly burning it to DVD. Sony does still offer one Digital8 camcorder of two models in their consumer Digital8 lineup, and two portable Digital8 VCRs (one with monitor and one without), that can digitally transfer your old analog footage, but the lowest-price Digital8 camcorder cannot play back analog tapes at all. It's not an insurmountable problem; there are several products on the market that you can use to digitize analog footage. But it's something that camcorder buyers should be aware of, considering the popularity of DV and the possible resulting notion that all modern camcorders can download digital footage.
The other glaring feature that I noticed an absence of is S-Video output. When SVHS and Hi-8 first hit the market, one of the big selling points was the ability to send separated brightness and color information -- luminance and chrominance, or Y/C -- to the screen, resulting in a slightly clearer picture. The CCD-TRV138 has only a composite video output. Granted, the picture quality is quite good, but probably not the best that the internal electronics are capable of.
I have never owned a camera with any type of image stabilization feature, so the lack of it in this camcorder was not a significant factor for me. But then, I try to avoid using lightweight camcorders for long handheld shots of anything more than a few seconds. Other users may find it more of a problem.
A feature I found useful in moderation, but useless in the extreme, is the digital zoom. The optical zoom is great, and provides up to 20x magnification with excellent clarity and good exposure latitude, and Sony's autofocus is quick and accurate, and keeps right on top of things throughout the entire zoom range. In manual focus mode, there is a slight amount of focus "breathing," a need to readjust the focus when the focal length changes, but that is to be expected for a lens of this type. At the widest lens setting, there is a macro mode that allows focus right up to the surface of the lens -- in fact, fingerprints left by inquisitive youngsters on the lens have confounded me on a couple of occasions. The best way to resolve this is to clean the lens, but the quick way to get that elusive shot is to zoom in slightly, which disables the macro focus feature.
The menu system allows the user to set the zoom mode to optical-only, or two modes of optical + digital: one where the digital zoom is limited to 40x total (20x optical and 2x digital), and one with the full digital zoom range of 990x (20x optical and 49.5x digital). The limited range is fine for most uses with the exception of those uses with the most extreme requirements for fine detail. The full range is also useful through most of its range, but of course at a major loss of detail. It becomes totally useless, however, at the extreme end of its zoom range; it seems as though only four to six pixels of the CCD image sensor are expanded to cover the entire screen, and at that resolution, even the crudest image cannot be resolved. I suppose it could be useful, for certain types of transitions: zoom all the way in until the image is just a blur, stop tape, line up the next shot, start tape, and zoom back out from the blur. But it is of no use in getting those extreme long shots.
The battery that comes with the camera is good for about two hours, unless you use the color flip-out screen. Sony sells batteries with much longer endurance, but the included battery is fine for most uses, and the infoLITHIUM circuitry is usually accurate regarding the remaining useable charge. Sony does not recommend the use of third-party batteries with the CCD-TRV138, and such use will void your warranty. But if you don't mind that they don't provide the remaining-life readout, longer-life batteries from the more reputable third-party replacement battery vendors do work with the camcorder, and may be a good value after the end of the warranty period.
The low-light capability is excellent, with only moderate graininess until light levels reach almost complete darkness. The infrared NightShot Plus system adds even more range, and the infrared LED illumination source built into the camera allows for shooting even in total darkness. The camera also has a three-LED white light source for filling in shadows and helping in other close quarters low-light situations. Of course, using either the white or infrared light sources has a dramatic effect on battery life, even with the energy-efficient LED technology used.
Some features I found useful in these days of ever increasing widescreen monitors and displays were the 16:9 shooting modes. Two different formats are used, letterbox and anamorphic. In letterbox mode, footage shot is cropped at the top and bottom of the screen. When viewed on a wide screen in 4:3 mode, the image will have a border around all four sides unless the monitor has a zoom feature, but it will be viewable on the more square 4:3 screen format. In anamorphic mode, the widest portion of the CCD image sensor is used, and it is "squeezed" into the normal video frame size. On a wide screen, the image can be shown in 16:9 mode and it will fill the screen, but on a 4:3 screen, the images will appear tall and thin because of the squeezing.
The usual features are present for special effects, such as mosaic and black-and-white, but I prefer to use such effects in post-production, since they can always be applied after the fact, but it isn't possible to retrieve color or detail information that you didn't record in the first place.
The fold-out color screen is bright and colorful, with buttons for starting the recorder and zooming in and out, and reverse feature for self-taping. The black-and-white viewfinder screen is clear and features a diopter adjustment for those who usually wear corrective lenses. The zoom controls on the top of the camcorder fall easily to hand and are variable from almost imperceptibly slow to motion-sickness-inducing speed, but the touch is a bit too light for my tastes.
Care must be taken in attempting to change tapes while the unit is mounted on a tripod: the tape eject control is mounted on the underside, and the mechanism ejects outward and down. Pan/tilt arms and wide mounting plates may obstruct access and motion.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): ~250 Recommended for: Budget Buyers - Best Values to Fit the Budget
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