On Wed, 19 Aug 1998 19:14:21 GMT, timmstr@yahoo.com wrote:

>Apparently, the *only* White Balance setting available on the Sony DCR-TRV9
>(single chip mini-DV camera) is "Automatic".
>
>Does this really work? In every and all (e.g. Outdoors/Bright-Sun,
>Outdoors/Sun-Set, Outdoors/Night, Indoors/Flourescent, Indoors/Incandescent,
>Mixed(Incandescent/Flourescent/Sun, etc.) lighting combinations?
>
>Anyone seen icy-blue or lobster-red people in their videos, or has Sony made
>remembering to set white balance a thing of the past (which would be a *great*
>blessing)?

Yes, there is no white balance manual setting or lock on the TRV-9
Yes, the color balance is reasonable under most conditions...
But, daylight balance tends to be a bit too blue for my taste,
and the overall contrast (and the appearance of color saturation)
is too low for me. Too bad, since so many things are done
so well on this camcorder (AF and stabilization are excellent,
as is AE [all better than other camcorders I've seen], and the
B&W daylight-IR feature has been a LOT of fun [white foliage,
black skies and water, etc]). I copy TRV-9 tapes from a VX-1000
back to the TRV-9 analogue input through a Videonics video
EQ, which works well to correct the image to my satisfaction.
The camera is well laid out, with good-feeling, well-places
controls. The lens is excellent, and works well with WA converters.
I use a Canon ZM-100 mic with it (with added battery box for
power) to get around the ubiquitous mini-DV camera "whine"
in the audio, though otherwise the built-in mic sounds good.
The TRV-9 is a nice-handling, compact DV camcorder with
really good auto controls and an excellent picture, with one
failing (correctable in copies), the color...