On Wed, 02 Sep 1998 11:33:02 GMT, moron@idiot.com (Dummy) wrote:

>>Why is it banned???

>I don't believe it is banned; Sony simply discontinued production when
>a Japanese Men's Magazine publicized its capabilities. Remaining
>inventories, as you may guess, were snapped up rapidly. Supposedly an
>infrared vision capability, coupled with an inexpensive filter,
>allowed it to have 'revealing' capabilities. I've never seen or used
>one: your mileage may differ.

Sony offered IR "night-shot" capability on several Hi-8 and one
mini-DV camcorders (the original offer failed to specify which
one was for sale...). I own the mini-DV TRV-9 version. The IR
function can be used during the daytime, and it works well when
combined with a red or IR filter and a polarizer (and B&W
picture mode) to produce rather nice infrared video (white
clouds, black sky and water, white foliage, light smooth-looking
skin-tone - and, very occasionally, some transparency with
open-weave wet clothing or dry speaker grille cloth...;-).
Sony decided to modify the feature to disable its use in daylight
(Darn! Daylight IR is FUN!!!) with current production camcorders,
giving some value to those camcorders that have the capability
still enabled, rarely as its use for "X-ray" vision works...