Best combination of Still and Video camera features for the price
by gottum_m - Written: Aug 06 '03
Product Rating:
Ease of Use:
Durability:
Battery Life:
Movie Quality:
Pros: MegaPixel still pictures,
Sony Brand,
Size and Style,
Ergonomics
Cons: Poor battery life,
No separate battery charger,
No in-built flash
The Bottom Line: This is a feature packed branded camcorder that you can bet your $600.00 on. If you have some more money to spend, consider microDV series.
gottum_m's Full Review: Sony Handycam DCR-TRV33 Mini DV Camcorder
Not too long ago, I did little research on camcorders for a friend. It was pretty obvious back then to decide on a Sony Digital 8 camcorder with still pictures on to a memory stick for about a grand.
This time I needed one for myself for an important wedding I had to attend and I started the same research again after about an year. Wow! What an advancement. Today there are tons of models from so many manufacturers and it is not so easy to pick one. There are many features that come in today's camcorders, but the choice finally depends upon what you really need it for. I've considered the following factors to pick a camcorder.
1. Tape type - MiniDV, MicroDV, Hi8 etc... Almost all good camcorders today use either MiniDV or Hi8. MicroDV is only used in the high end camcorders which are very expensive. Camcorders that use MiniDV are smaller in size than the camcorders that use Hi8 probably because of the small cassette size. Hence miniDV was my choice here. I filtered half of the model line-up here.
2. Digital/Analog camcorder - Had to go thorugh lot of material to compare the features between digital and analog camcorder. Digital camcorders not only give more clarity in picture and sound but also add still picture capability. Although Digital camcorders are little expensive over the analog camcorders, they are the future and worth the extra price.
3. Video Camera resolution - OK! It is going to be a Digital camcorder then. What next? The pixel count is a feature of digital camcorders indicating the clarity of the video. They range from 300Kilopixels to about 1.5 Megapixels. More the pixel count, higher is the price and better is the picture clarity. But from my observation, anything above 500K pixels is good enough. Eliminated some more models with this criteria.
4. Still Camera resolution - Although the stand alone digital cameras take lot better pictures than the pictures from a camcorder, it would be convenient to carry just one piece and be able to take both video and still pictures. Hence still camera feature inside a camcorder make an important feature. But, the still pictures from camcorders are not as good as the digital pictures from stand alone digital cameras. This is mainly because the still camera resolution inside camcorders is poor. They range from 300Kpixels to 2 mega pixels. From my comparison, 1M pixel take reasonable quality pictures. I then wanted 1 Mega Pixel still cameras from my camcorder filtering more from the remaining models. Higher mega pixels not only increase the price of the camcorder for the same video features but also eat up the memory faster.
5. PC connectivity - Most of the digital camcoders today stream video into a PC connected via USB or Firewire(IEEE 1394) ports. If you have a PC/Laptop with firewire port on it, it is good to have firewire connectivity on the Camcorder as it offers faster data transfer than USB.
Using above criteria, I ended with choice among Canon ZR series and Sony DCR-TRV series.
There are models from Panasonic, JVC and Samsung matching my criteria but I did not pick from for various reasons. There are too many compliants against Samsung customer service, too few models from Panasonic and JVC making me feel that they might not be stable models. Also models from these manufactures are bigger in size and some of them look ugly.
I picked Sony over Canon as Sony camcorders are smaller and stylish. Now the next challenge is to pick a camcorder among the long model line-up from SONY DCR-TRV series.
From the comparison among all the DCR-TRV models, I quickly picked DCR-TRV33. It carries the most optimally packed features for the price.
If you go down the SONY model line to DCR-TRV22 or DCR-TRV19, they use the same body but we loose almost half pixel count in video and 2/3 pixel count in still pictures in DCR-TRV22 and we loose lot more in DCR-TRV19. I liked the cool metallic blue color on these models though.
If you go up the SONY model line to DCR-TRV38, it comes with the same features as DCR-TRV33 except a bigger LCD screen. Bigger LCD screen means bigger in size and heavier in weight. Also, it uses the same battery as the DCR-TRV33 and drains faster because of the bigger LCD. Still higher up is the DCR-TRV39 inheriting the drawbacks of DCR-TRV38, but featuring higher resolution and is lot more pricier than the DCR-TRV33. Listed at about 50% more price than TRV33, I did not think the extra features are worth the extra price.
FINALLY, the SONY DCR-TRV33 was my pick among all manufactures and all models from SONY.
I've been using this for about four months now and I've been very happy so far with it. I hear a WOW! from all the friends that happen to see it. It is so tiny is size that it is hard to believe that it is a camcorder. Following is the feature list of this camcorder.
1. 600 KPixel video resolution with CCD
2. 1 Mega Pixel still pictures
3. Stereo sound recording with PCM encoding
4. Direct Mpeg1 encoding into the Memory Stick
5. USB and Firewire connectivity
6. External AV input to pass through as well as record into the Memory or cassette
7. 2.5" color LCD featuring touch screen controls
8. Color view finder
9. 8MB memory stick supplied with the camcorder
10. External microphone jack
11. External flash jack
12. In-built video editing features
13. Steady shot
14. Night shot and Super Night shot
I loved the tiny size of the camcorder and it is amazing that that tiny size contains so many features packed in it. I also loved the ergonomics in the control placement. Following the Sony footsteps, this camcorder places controls like record button, zoom button, still camera button very reachable by fingers. Within minutes after starting to use this, you will get used to the controls.
Though small in size, it is little heavy indicating the quality and durability of the materials used.
Also the edit and other advanced features of this camcorder are accessible through LCD touch screen. Tap on the LCD and it will show a relevant menu. Following the menu you can control the advanced features of this camcorder. Although this touch screen LCD control is a cool and latest feature, some of the frequently used features are buried in those menus making it hard to quickly access them. Not a big deal for me for wanted to make a point to those who are concerned.
Video and audio quality of the recording is amazing. Although the picture quality of the video is little faded in bad light zones. An in-built flash would have helped little.
I purchased another 128 MB memory stick and took about 500 pictures in the wedding while I was taking the video.
One of the very few disadvantages of this camcorder is the battery life. The supplied battery would last only an hour when used with LCD. I guess they picked the smallest size battery as a standard battery to make the size smaller and hence this drawback. Although the camcorder can be used with the AC adapter plugged in, I would have liked a better battery life. I purchased an additional battery which can last upto three hours but which is three times to the size of the standard battery. The old SONY camcorders used to come with a stand alone charger that can charge the batteries without the need of the camcorder. That would be very convenient to charge the spare battery while using regular battery and then switch the battery once the spare is charged. This camcorder requires the battery to be inserted into the camcorder and AC adapter should be connected to the camcorder to charge the battery. The stand alone charger is available for an extra price though.
The miniDV tapes are little more expensive than other types of tapes. I hope they become cheaper. There is also a miniDV with Memory kind of tape that this camcorder supports. It can store small data like Title of the recording and datetime stamp in the cassette for a little more price of the tape.
I also tried to record a video into the memory stick which records in MPEG1 format which makes an instant VCD when transferred to PC and burned to a CD. It works great. It needs conversion to MPEG2 in the PC to make a DVD, but it is possible if your PC/Laptop has a DVD burner.
As a final word, I would recommend this camcorder to anybody who is looking for good branded digital camcorder which is optimally priced for the load of features.
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