On Fri, 21 Jan 2000 13:25:31 -0500, "James Kiricov"
>Thank you Richard for your input. You hit the main point perhaps better
>then me.
>There is no doubt that both of these camera's are worthy of serious
>consideration.
>The fact that it usually comes down to choosing between these two models
>says a lot.
>My main concern was that many people will read the overly critical reviews
>of these camera's and base their decession on laboritory tests, and
>resolution tests that are so far in the fringe area, no one will notice any
>of this stuff in normal use.
[...rest deleted...]
Hmmmmm.....
It would seem that neither of you actually looked
at my frame-grabs or read my reviews....;-)
I do not test with charts (I learned their limitations
long ago, while checking still-camera lenses...); I use
"real" subjects for testing (and you can read in my
comparison article (on my web page, under the "I babble"
index) why they were chosen, and what to look for...).
And, while the picture of neither camcorder is perfect
(sigh! ;-), the GL-1 shows more artifacting than the
TRV-900, and this artifacting can be quite annoying,
once one notices it (like recorded camera noise is).
Try shooting hand-held a book-case full of narrow books,
and also things with fine and contrasty detail, like bare
branches against a white house (or any of the VERY
common variations on these), and see if you like the
white outlining on contrasty edges, the irregular
rendering of near vertical lines [often with strong
"stair-stepping"], etc. [it is even worse when these
effects combine...;-]).
If the ideal in a camcorder is a picture that is -
1) sharp all over
2) without extraneous camera-generated elements
3) neutral in color balance
and with sound that is -
4) neutral in tonal balance
5 free of background noise
the GL-1 is good with the first, poor with the second,
so-so with the third, poor with the fourth, and OK with
the fifth; the TRV-900 is good with the first, OK with
the second, OK with the third, good with the fourth, and
good with the fifth. The bottom line with any camcorder
is the answer to, "What does the picture look like?",
and, "How good is the sound?" (after all, the video
viewer doesn't care what you shot the footage with, just
how good the picture and sound are - though you may care
about some particular features while shooting...).
With all the recent hype about the GL-1 (and the TRV-900),
I think looking at both with some objectivity is in order.
(Your list of "grievances" against the TRV-900 appeared,
uh, less than objective...;-) After looking at both, I
would certainly not rate either as perfect, or unuseable,
but overall, I would rate both picture and sound of the
TRV-900 as better than that of the GL-1. But that is
just my opinion, after looking at both...
Perhaps, looking at the same results, you would come
to a different conclusion...