>In article <3c0bb718.34621649@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, rpn1
>@cornell.edu says...
>> On Sun, 02 Dec 2001 01:34:02 GMT, tnr
>> wrote:
>> >In article <76si0u4fvunilebt6260llpsuplau083u4@4ax.com>, ask@me.net
>> >says...

>> >> What about Canon GL1? Now it costs around $3,200 (CAD). It is a decent
>> [....]
>> >> 3xCCD camcorder. Though many consider Sony TRV900 a better choice, I
>> >> am not convinced. Definitely the GL1 lens is superior to TRV900. The
>> >> TRV900 has a very weak lens, much worse than the rest of Sony 1 CCD
>> >> camcorders (they have Carl Zeiss lenses). GL1 has got the same CCD
>> >> like XL1, which is an excellent camcorder. Canon camcorders deliver
>> >> traditionally better colors than Sony. Just another option...

>> >Do you think so? I don't know enough about this but I did see a test
>> >between the MX3000, GL1 (iirc) and TRV900. The MX3000 gave the best
>> >color, followed by TRV900 and then the Canon.

>> The GL-1, TRV900, VX2000 and others are reviewed at:
>> www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm
>> At the end of this review is the Japanese-site URL
>> with frame-grabs and stills comparing these and others.

>This (the japanese link) was interesting although it wasn't the site to
>which I was referring. Unfortunately it was just one of many found
>googling the night away and I can't recall the url now. The color
>saturation seemed much better and I didn't notice any loss of detail
>compared to the others.

Remember with frame-grabs, viewed on a computer-monitor,
that with brightness/contrast/gamma/saturation/
color-balance, "more" is not necessarily "better", and
given higher contrast/gamma/saturation, and even color
bias, people oftem mistake this for "sharpness".
Look for fine image details, and compare these...
I just brought up MX3000 and VX2000 comparison images
from the Japanese site (these are not directly comparable,
unless shot in identical light, but we will make assumptions,
since they look close enough...;-).
Taking the daylight cityscapes in:
MX3000 at: www4.big.or.jp/~a_haru/DVinN1/MX3000/Goutdoor1.jpg
and VX2000 at:
www4.big.or.jp/~a_haru/VX2000/Goutdoor1.jpg
it is obvious that the 300/3000 color balance is
quite biased toward red (without corrections available
in the camera controls); the 2000 balance is very slightly
blue-green (with correctable balance, using the camera
color-bias control) -- the 3000 shows less fine detail
in the bridge and building railings, signage, and
textures in building and bridge sides -- the greens
are noticeably inferior in the 3000 (the colors, in general,
look "wrong", with excessive tinting and in most colors,and
even the reds, given the strong red bias, are surprisingly
not "clean". Notice, also, the yellow smear into the sky in
the 3000 image from the sign near the upper left edge, the
lack of "firmness" in the building shapes, and the
oversharpening outlines visible at building/sky
intersections, and especially in the top and bottom edges
in the grey panel behind the Coca Cola sign compared with
the VX2000 image...
Taking the test charts at:
www8.big.or.jp/%7Ea_fuyu/DVinN2/MX3000/reso_DV.jpg
and at:
www8.big.or.jp/%7Ea_fuyu/DVinN2/VX2000/reso_DV.jpg
the color bias of the 300/3000 is also obvious in this
light (the 2000 is relatively neutral, and correctable
in-camera); the oversharpening in the 3000 is obvious
in the "halos" around the corner circles and in the
diagonal lines running toward the center, and in all other
areas with hard black-white intersections; look at the
relative clarity of the text; notice the higher (excessive)
contrast in the 3000 tone bars, where you cannot see the
lower-value tones as well as with the 2000; etc.
Bottom line: the VX2000 image is sharper (but with less
oversharpening, and with control over sharpening degree);
more color-neutral and color-accurate (with camera control
over warm/cool bias and color saturation); and with more
normal-contrast compared with the MX3000 (and similar
comparisons can be done with other cameras on this site).
On my site, I also do not point out these specifics in
the comparison frame-grabs as I have above - I assume they
are obvious...;-) See:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm

>> As for the MX300/3000, I have not tried it. From frame-grabs
>> I've seen, it appears to have a strong red bias, and also
>> noticeably lower resolution (especially at the frame
>> edges) compared with the Sony. I cannot see these as
>> advantages...

>That wasn't my reaction to the images at the site I mentioned above but
>then we weren't looking at the same images.

The things I point out above appear to be visible in all
the images on this site... (Perhaps you need a new monitor...?;-)

>There are also some comparison shots at
>http://www.supervideo.com/shootout.htm

This is the one I mentioned before - some of the conclusions
drawn at this site make no sense, if you just shift the
color of the 2000 and 3000 images closer together (most
people see image "warmth" as, amazingly,
"sharper/higher-contrast/better-color/etc" - but this isn't
technically true... look at the details of resolution,
shadow/highlight-rendering/color-accuracy objectively...;-)
The car in the field is a good example:
MX3000 at: www.supervideo.com/shooto21.jpg
VX2000 at: www.supervideo.com/shooto22.jpg
(I would have been running the VX2000 with sharpness
at "+1", color-bias at "+1" or "+2" here, and probably
the saturation at +1, also...;-) At first look, the
MX3000 image is more appealing (but remember those custom
picture controls in the VX2000 - you can modify AE-bias,
edge-sharpening, color warm-cool bias, and color saturation
to make the picture what you want), but even without custom
controls used, the VX2000 image shows more normal color
balance, contrast, and color-saturation for a grey-day -
and it shows more fine detail, less oversharpening edge
outlining, more even frame illumination (notice the
edge darkening in the 3000 image), more even sharpness
across the frame (notice the loss of sharpness with the
3000 image toward the edges [top/bottom/sides] compared
with the center. First (unobservant) impressions can be
wrong...;-) Take these two images into a photo-editor
and apply filters similar to what are in available in
the VX2000 custom controls, and you may be surprised how
much better the VX2000 image looks afterwards than
the MX3000 image looks...;-)

>One thing I don't get about the DV951 is that it has 410K ccd's but the
>effective count is 310K which is not enough for 720 pixels. Perhaps the
>same shifting tech they use for stills is used with video as well to
>derive more resolution... but since it has optical stabilization I don't
>understand why they would use 360K of the 410K pixels available on the
>ccd.

Dunno...
I owned and liked the Panasonic EZ30U (I suspect it is a
better camera than the 951...), but its irregular vertical
edge rendering and many other quirks drew me to other
options in preference (the two Sony 3-chippers were better
in most ways, and I kept the tiny Sony PC-1 in preference
to the EZ30U, surprisingly, for some interior work I do -
at some light levels, its image was better [after
corrections in Premiere]). As with anything, choose what you
want, but I thought it worthwhile to point out picture
differences among camcorders that, for me, add up to seeing
a superior picture in some camcorders compared with others.
If you are not sensitive to these differences, or do not
care, that's fine...;-)