On Sat, 9 Oct 1999 23:01:57 -0400, "Roger Olney" wrote:

>I have the an Ultura. It's a good camcorder for the money. Has optical
>image stabilization which is much better than the electronic type. Also
>manual white balance, manual focus and manual shutter/exposure if you care
>to use them. Only disadvantage I've found is that its internal mic picks up
>motor noise and even handling noises. I'll use mine with an external mic
>from now on.

Don't dismiss DIS out of hand..., the Sony camcorders that
have digital image stabilizers have ones that work very well
(they "crop" the viewed image area out of a high-pixel-count
CCD instead of cropping the stabilized image out of a normal
CCD [Panasonic] which results in lower resolution and narrower
angle of view [like digital zoom in effect...]). Check out the
DIS stabilizers in the Sony PC-1, TRV-9,
etc. - they work as well as the optical type. Also,
fortunately mini DV camcorders do exist with quiet audio
from the built-in mics (PC-1, TRV-900, AG-EZ30U, VX-1000,
etc.) - a mini camcorder is no longer very mini or easily
packed if an external mic is necessary, alas...