You get what you pay for

Author's Rating:

Pros: Night Vision/Super Night Vision 8 hour battery, 1 mega pix CCD

Cons: Pricey, Size, Zoom

The Bottom Line: 
Good product! Great Quality! Everything is great just a little pricey!

Author's Review
I just bought my Sony TRV-20 digital camcorder and a firewire card last week from outpost.com

Price:
When i buy expensive electronic equipment for things like camcorder and laptop. Things that's over $1,000 i like to buy it online where you don't have to pay tax.(check it with the online store first) where the tax of that retail product is way over it's shipping fee, and where you can get at a discount store. Goodguys online also offer a free tax and shipping plan. i got over-night shipping from outpost for around $9. where in CA the tax of the camcorder and a firewire card is about $142. So shop online for those expensive stuff.

Value:
TRV-20 has a 1 mega pix CCD with 520 horizontal line, night vision and super night vision, mini DV tape, 3.5'' LCD monitor and a color view-finder, and both camcorder and camera function. Most of the stuff is pretty much similar to any other Sony digital camcorder. What's so special about it is that it's 1 mega pix CCD. With it's camera function you are able to take pic at both
1152*864 and 640*480 resolution which makes it a 1 mega pix digital camera, picture are stored in a include 4mb mem. stick.
At best resolution you only be able to take 7 pic in the 4mb mem. stick. Because it's using CCD technology be sure to have enough light when you are taking your pic. When light source are low the quality of the pic drops dramatically. 520 horizontal lines makes this digital camcorder one step closer to DVD quality. Very good quality.
Generally it's a pretty nice camcorder with everything you will ever need. Of course you also need a firewire card. Since that's the main reason you are getting a digital camcorder it to edit the video in your own computer, add you own text, caption, digital effect, transition and all sorts of stuff. Be sure have a big hard drive 4 min video is about 1 GB.
Size:
This is the main choice you have to make since you know it's a really good camcorder. TRV-20 has basically same spec. at the new Sony PC-110. But PC-110 is about half the size of TRV-20. TRV-20 has the same size as most Hi8 or digital 8 camcorder. So if you want a real pocket size camcorder get PC-110 at $1999. Hey you get what you pay for.
Zoom:
It only offers 120x digital zoom. It's much less than most Hi8 or digital8 camcorder. Some digital8 even offers a 720x digital zoom. But since the digital zoom really destroy the video quality. You might want to set digital zoom at 20x where the video quality is still good.
Battery:
Battery is the last thing you want to consider. The camcorder itself already comes with a 2 hour battery. But it's only 2 hours when you use view-finder only. when you turn on both LCD and night vision. You can record about 80 min. That's about a little over a stand MINI digital tape record at SP speed.