On Sat, 29 Sep 2001 12:16:47 -0400, "Ken Alper" wrote:

>We're about to have our first child, and I've been looking for a camcorder.
>Work recently bought me a Sony Vaio laptop with both memory stick and
>firewire ports on it, so I'm very much interested in Sony's MiniDV and
>Digital 8 lines. I spent a lot of time in college shooting and editing 3/4"
>video at the college TV station, and have done some occasional editing work
>with Premiere in the years after, so I'm not entirely clueless about video,
>but I am when it comes to consumer products. I have a few questions I hope
>y'all can help me with:
>
>I've read in product reviews on amazon.com that a lot of people are unhappy
>with the picture quality on the Digital 8 TRV-x30 series; apparently, the
>"ability" of the camera to shoot video in near-total darkness results in it
>popping up the gain and shooting lousy video indoors in normal, low-ish
>light situations, like first steps, birthday parties, etc. Is this true? Can
>it be overcome by turning that "feature" off? From what people are saying,
>it sounds similar to the effect of turning up the gain on our old cameras in
>college -- good in a pinch, but not what you'd want for an interview in
>someone's office, say. Amazon doesn't seem to carry much of the MiniDV line,
>so I can't tell if they have the same problem.

You may be confusing "night-shot" with gain-rise - they
are different. "Night-shot" uses (mostly) infrared light, which
CCDs are quite sensitive to, to produce a decent
near-monochrome (or, preferably, with B&W-mode switched
on...) image in very low ambient light, or even no visible
light using an IR illumination source. All camcorders
increase gain (and grain, along with weakened color
saturation) after the shutter reaches 1/60th second and
the lens reaches the widest stop - otherwise the picture
would continue to get darker.
The Sony camcorders do allow you to trade off the ill
effects of slow shutter speeds (1/30th and 1/15th are not
too bad...) for the ill effects of gain in a given light level,
though. In general, D-8 and Mini-DV one-chip
camcorders are not wonderful in low light; the 3-chippers
are generally better...

>(I'm most interested in the
>TRV-17; I don't really want to spend that much, even, but if it's the case
>that the Digital 8 line is unsuitable, I will.)

The top end of the D-8 Sony line uses megapixel CCDs,
with good video and (web) still results, but with so-so
low-light ability. I like the TRV11/17/PC5/9 image quality
for video - it is pleasant (but the stills are nearly
useless).

>I like the idea of being able to use the camcorder to do some still captures
>to put online, but I don't really plan on printing those stills, so I can
>accept that tradeoff -- I just need to know whether I'll be unable to shoot
>normal indoor video on one of these Digital 8's, or if I really need to go
>MiniDV. (I like the idea of the new format a lot, I just have a hard time
>justifying the price being twice that of a mid-range Digital 8 camera).

For an overview:
Sony has "cleverly" split up its Mini-DV camcorder
line into segments, and subdivided some of those into
"compact upright" and "conventional horizontal" body
types, trying to catch/satisfy all of us buyers...;-)
At the "bottom" end are the D8s (but with a couple of
good "higher end" megapixel versions), then the
TRV17/PC9 level (with good, smooth, nice-color,
pleasant motion-video picture, but poor stills), then
the "megapixel" TRV30/PC120 models (with a sharper
motion-video picture, but with some color error and
other negative picture artifacts evident as the
price for the greater sharpness - and with noticeable
color noise in the megapixel stills [but with very
good 640x480 stills]), then the TRV900 3-chipper
(with a motion-video picture that is better than the
one-chippers in color, tonality, relative freedom
from artifacts, and low light range - and decent
640x480 stills), and, in the consumer line, finally
the VX2000 (with excellent motion-video picture - and
excellent 640x480 stills). The size of each increases
with price, and that is also a consideration. The
TRV17/PC9 have a motion-video picture that satisfies
me for some uses (and the packages are compact) - but
the picture quality and low-light reach of the VX2000
are clearly better (in a considerably larger and
heavier package). You make your choice, but the
more expensive model is not necessarily the best
for your needs/wants...
BTW, several Mini-DV camcorders are (critically)
reviewed on my web page, at:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm
(maybe one of these days I will add the TRV11,
PC9, PC100, and some others...).