Truly amazing camera
Written: Oct 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: GREAT features, good zoom, video quality, and value
Cons: Battery doesn't last long enough
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| Alex846's Full Review: Sony Handycam CCD-TRV66 Hi-8 Analog Camcorder |
I actually own the Sony CCD-TRV87 which is pretty much the same as the TRV66 except for a few added features. Let me start off with a tip on where to buy camcorders or any electronics for that matter. Sears has a lowest price guarantee which includes internet sites! In other words you can find a great price, for whatever it is that you're buying, on the internet, print that out, take it up to sears and buy it for much cheaper than what they usually charge. For example I paid around $620 after taxes compared to their either seven or eight hundred dollar price.
This camera uses HI-8 tapes and records in XR mode which is very high quality. This is Sony's top of the line model that uses HI-8 tapes. So unless you want to go all out with a digital camera this is a good buy. I previously owned a Panasonic camcorder which used VHS tapes and I've noticed that the quality of the Sony is MUCH better than the Panasonic.
One time during spring break we took our Panasonic camcorder with us skiing and we had it in my backpack when I took a little fall and we later discovered that it broke. My point being that the Panasonic wasn't very sturdy and the Sony is by far more durable.
This Sony camcorder has a 2.5" LCD screen which makes recording easier and also allows you to play back your tape and watch it without a TV. It has S-video(higher quality than RCA) and RCA inputs(which double as outputs) which prove to be very useful. I've recorded a few movies before and watched them on long road trips, even though the screen is small it passes the time well.
If you watched some of the footage and then recorded some more on my old Panasonic it would insert a few seconds of blankness between the recordings however the Sony doesn't do that. This camera has a 20X and 360X digital zoom lens. You lose quality when using the digital zoom because it takes the image and enlarges it without using the lens. So having a 500X digital zoom doesn't help you much since the quality is horrible by the time you hit 360X. At times it is useful though.
This camera has steadyshot which obviously keeps the video from looking too bumpy. It has nightshot and super nightshot(I'm not sure if the TRV66 has this feature). This is a surprisingly useful feature. I was amazed at how well it worked. It does make the video greenish and the quality isn't as good as normal but it is useful. The super nightshot slows the shutter down which for some reason makes the video brighter but lowers the quality even more.
Another important feature is the fader. The TRV87 is the only Sony 8 mm camcorder that has an overlap fader which basically dissolves one shot into another shot. This is by far the best fader this camera has, it looks really nifty and gives your video a more professional look. The other faders it has are: wipe, fader, Mosaic fader, stripe, and monotone.
Some of the best features of this unit are the digital effects and the picture effects. Digital effects: Old Movie-slows the shutter and gives it a brownish tint, Slow Shutter-really fun to play around with cause it's kinda like a strobe light for example you can run across the screen and it looks like you're running extremely fast, Trail-too hard to describe, Lumi.-ditto, Flash-ditto, and Still-overlaps two videos. Picture effects: Pastel, Neg. Art, Sepia-brownish tint, Black and White, Solarize, Mosaic, Slim-makes everything slim, Stretch-makes everything look fat(hint hint: don't use this on your wife). These features alone make this camcorder worth buying, trust me!
When you record with this camcorder it will display the date for a few seconds when you first start recording on that day so if you record again on that day it won't display the date(this can be changed in the menu). It has a 16:9 ratio recording mode, wind noise reduction, and a photo mode. If you take a picture in photo mode it will record that image for seven seconds on the tape and record the noise during those seven seconds. Sadly the battery that they provide with this unit doesn't last very long(a little over an hour) however you can always buy another battery which i think would run you about fifty bucks.
As you can tell this is a great camcorder. So far I have no complaints! If you don't want to spend a thousand bucks for a digital camcorder I highly recommend you buy this one!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Alex846
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Location: Texas
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 0 members
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