Hi--

I am contemplating buying the TRV-9 to replace my JVC GR-DVM1 for a few easons. the biggest one is the ability to firewire into my computer. Secondly, the longer battery life. I understand you can also bring in rca jacks to the TRV-9 to record video from other sources direct to the DV tape.

Please let me know how you satisfied with the Sony TRV-9.
"Fireman"

As I said in a recent post,
The lens is quite sharp, short of its long end, the stabilizer is
the best I've seen, as is the AF. The size is nice. The Sony .6X
works well with it. But the picture color is rather weak and blue
(it can be corrected with an analogue video EQ [thanks to the
analogue input, but it requires a second DV-tape player...]). The
(corrected) picture is good for a one-chip camcorder in bright
light (though VERY noisy in even moderate light...), but not up
to the three-chip image quality of the VX-1000 or of the
TRV-900 (which appears to be quite good from the excellent
web stills taken with it - see http//www.best.com/~beale/trv900 ).
The audio has a quite-noticeable "whine" in it, also. The analogue
input is a great feature of both the TRV-9 and 900. The battery life
is good, but much exaggerated... I find the daylight-IR "night-shot"
feature excellent for B&W IR video - but Sony is defeating it for
bright-light use on the TRV-9, and it is missing from the TRV-900.
Altogether, I would try to get the TRV-900 instead of the TRV-9...
(But if you want to pay me enough for mine.....;-)