Best digital camcorder for amateurs

Author's Rating:

Pros: Inexpensive, ergonomically designed, on-the-fly analog-to-DV conversion, 25x optical zoom.

Cons: Could be smaller.

The Bottom Line: 
If you've got a home computer with Firewire and want a camera with great ease of use and REAL functionality without gimmicks, this is the digital video camera to have.

Author's Review
Picture and sound quality from all the single-CCD camcorders is excellent. Here's why I bought the TRV-120:

1) Inexpensive. (I paid $499.95+tax)

2) I don't need bells and whistles in the form of faders, and special effects. Of course, it comes with several anyway, but I'll never use them. With my Mac and its Firewire connection (Sony calls it iLink, the engineers call it IEEE1394) I can do all my fancy video mixing/editing/effects, etc. losslessly on the computer and then put the final product right back out to the camcorder.

3) For those times one needs manual focusing, the control is a ring around the lens....makes it feel just like focusing a 35mm SLR. MUCH better than the thumb wheels some others have.

4) Inexpensive Digital-8 tapes.

5) (This one almost makes it worth the purchase by itself) *ON-THE-FLY* conversion of analog audio/video into DV datastream into the computer. Only Sony offers this...with all the rest, you have to record your old analog data onto a tape in your camcorder, then capture that data off the tape into the computer...a process that takes twice as long. I love being able to stream old VHS or Beta tapes, or live broadcast TV(from the A/V composite output on my VCR), into the TRV-120 and stream it straight into the Mac via Firewire for realtime capture.

6) Don't need the memory stick. Again, if you've got a computer, whatdya need the memory stick for?

7) InfoLithium batteries are terrific for showing remaining time left on the battery in minutes, taking most of the guess work of battery life out of the equation. (the optional battery packs give up to 12 hours of duty).

8) 25x optical zoom. Forget about the digital zoom...that's just blowing up the same pixels. Optical zoom is the *real* magnifying power of the camera. Most others are only 10-16x. The TRV-120 is 25x (digital is 450x, but again, ignore this number). Also, the TRV-120 allows you to disable the digital zoom so that you can't exceed the optical 25x power.

9) NightShot. I admit, it's a bit of a gimmick, but it's kinda cool to have built-in infrared illuminators. Could be handy for those who like to camp. Also great for monitoring the baby at night (when not in use, we mount it on a mount over the crib, power from the wall current, and modulate the analog A/V output onto our TVs around the house...NOTE: you need to remove the tape to do this, or it will go into standby after 3 minutes.)

Cons?: The digital-8 cameras are a bit bigger than their MiniDV counterparts given the larger tape and mechanism for Digital-8. Also, the flip out LCD is only 2.5"...the more expensive models have up to 3.5" (which draw more power).