On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 12:33:39 -0700, John wrote:

>I've always thought that optical stabilization was the ends-all, and
>digital was garbage, but nowadays electronics is so fast and focal
>planes better and better I wonder if it's foolish to make that
>generalization.
>
>e.g. the discontinued Optura Pi with only 360k pixels but optical
>stabilization, versus any number of camcorders with almost twice the
>pixels (and bigger FP's) but digital.
>
>Anyone who's done a pragmatic evaluation of both would find his
>opinions applauded.

Well-executed digital stabilization is without
discernable picture artifacts other than ones caused
by the switching of the base shutter speed from 1/60th
to 1/100th, and the possible effects of using a smaller
effective CCD area - but both of these are offset in
Sony models by the use of more sensitive "HAD" CCDs...
If you compare the image sharpness of the one-CCD,
DIS TRV30 with the 3-CCD OIS VX2000 in bright light,
you will find them remarkably similar in sharpness.
See the comparative frame grabs at:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm.