On Mon, 01 Feb 1999 18:15:57 GMT, "John" wrote:

>Can someone tell me the differences between Sony DCR-TRV900 & Sony DCR-TRV9.
>Im looking to buy one of these cameras for video capture to my computer.
>Does 1 have an advantage over the other? b Anyone who has one of these
>cameras and is using it for capture, any comments. How about the lowlight
>advantage of the TRV9, is it worth it.

These camcorders look nearly identical, but are quite
different in both sound and sight... The TRV-9 has
a color image that often looks weak in color saturation
in daylight (a polarizer can help), and very poor
indoors, even during the day (turning off the stabilizer
helps, since the shutter speed will drop from 1/100th
to 1/60th, allowing the gain to decrease - but the image
quality in color is no match for the VX-1000 or TRV-900).
Unlike the TRV-900, the audio of the TRV-9 has a very
noticeable "whine", even in fairly noisy environments.
On the "9" plus side, the camera is fairly inexpensive,
is small, has useful analogue inputs (both do), and
(with older samples, at least) has the wonderful
infrared ability (not especially useful for night
shooting, but excellent for daylight B&W shooting
where the image quality is very high, and very nice,
especially when using a red or IR filter plus a
polarizer to exaggerate the IR effects). The stabilizer
and AF are first-rate on both the "9 and "900", but the
noticeably better sound and picture of the "900" makes
it a better buy (though the "900" doesn't have the IR
feature and it is more expensive, darn! ;-).