Modern iSNT Better!!!
Written: Mar 22 '03
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Pros: NOTHING!Piece OF JUNK!!!10 Year old Sony 8mm was BETTER!
Cons: OPTICS GARBAGE...Miserable Picture quality, Bulky, Dumb lens cover....TOO Many 2 List!
The Bottom Line: Old8mm was BETTER!TERRIBLE Optics,ergonomicly unfriendly! Step BACKWARDS!Dont expect any better images form any other SONY product since if what we read elsewhere is true they use the same optics.
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| born2shop's Full Review: Sony Handycam CCD-TRV608 Hi-8 Analog Camcorder |
JUNK!! Let me preface this review by saying we too were great "fans" of Sony from long ago. We STILL have 2 old 13 inch TV's from the early 80's (one with pre cable tuner that has only 13 presets) that have excellent picture quality and function as designed...to LAST as well as our old Handycam. We decided to upgrade from our old SONY 8m for 3 reasons only. The Date feature on the old one hasnt worked since Y2K (thanks to the brilliant foresight of Sony engineers)and the tape door kept getting stuck(since we had a new baby and were taking many tapes) and we needed the reassurance of being able to play our old 8mm tapes and easily transfer via USB to a Computer DVD recorder in the future. Since the TRV11 was 10 years old we figured it wouldnt be long before something else broke and it was time 4 a new one anyway.
We did some basic research including here at epinions...Maybe ours was defective otherwise I cant FATHOM what the guy who wrote the positive opinion was thinking unless he sells the product!
This optics are MISERABLE! How can we tell for sure? Just hook the camera up to the TV as a monitor...even without taping and the quality is DISGRACEFUL! Hook up the 10 year old unit the same way...alot clearer! Not too surprising since the old one had a 12x vs the new one that is so bulky it uses an old slr type lens cover for its 20x and the enhancements. But we're talking miserable picture quality WITHOUT ZOOM at ALL. Hey our old one even had a self contained lens cap protector when you shut if off..great design!
We payed $900 10 years ago and are majorly disapointed in the picture quality this "modern" camera produces.
Now some of you may say...maybe they used the wrong tape type or had the video output set wrong,werent using "S video", etc...NO WAY! We compared quality of our OLD tapes using RCA output and the quality was BETTER!!
The first indication there might be a problem was literature in the box. That stated that a grainy/fuzzy apperance on the LCD screen was not an indication of the final quality and not to return the camera to the store....WRONG! The second was the tape door.....it actually says "DO NOT PUSH THIS PARTS".....ummm English speaking market? Vocaramaska? Please excuse my spelling...I'm not a corporation earning billions on its product so I cant hire anyone to proofread my Japanese....oh wait maybe i could just use the internet...if I bothered to make half an effort.
The tape door mechanism appeared to have been reengineered (apparently our old one wasnt just wear and tear but a bad design...or was it more expensive to make to last 10 years...only SONY knows for sure.
The zoom controls are VERY BULKY and the switches cheap and no where near the quality or ease of use of our old unit!
Apparently little foresight was spent on anything related to this unit.....I'd rather pay 2X as much $ for the quality type unit of 10 years ago!!! We are returning the unit to Walmart and may exchange for a Canon or some digital unit to see if its a trend that all these manufacturers make crummy cameras now.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): $320
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Epinions.com ID:
born2shop
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Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
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