On Wed, 08 Aug 2001 10:30:08 -0000, Tom wrote:

>I'm also considering these two camcorders. Just not sure which one to
>get. I haven't found any sites comparing the different features. I'm
>inclined to go with the TRV900 because of what I've read to be better low-
>light shooting quality. It's too bad Sony's site doesn't do side-by-side
>comparisons of these products.

See my comments (above)...

>I just wonder if still photos are better from the TRV30, with it's 1.5
>megapixel CCD, or from the TRV900 with the 3 380K pixel ccd's. I've read
>that with the TRV900, you can take several frames of video and combine
>them to form a single photo, using the progressive scanning feature. I
>couldn't determine whether the TRV30 has this same feature.

I don't think the TRV900 does that... (the Snappy capture
device does, though). I've taken few stills with the TRV900,
but the PC100 stills at highest resolution (and the TRV30
samples from the Japanese site) show considerable color
noise - I prefer the image quality with the resolution set
at 640x480, though these are good only for tiny prints or
for web use. The VX2000, BTW, makes wonderful 640x480 images
(samples in the VX2000 review, linked from:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm ).

>I guess night shooting is kinda neat, but I wonder if I'd actually use
>it. Maybe to film my baby sleeping in her crib. Maybe to film the bats
>flying out of the rafters in our house at night.

It is a neat feature for daylight shooting (see the TRV9
review at the URL above), but Sony disabled that ability
(with enough filtering, you can restore it...). For night use,
it is moderately interesting - and the camera sensitivity is
much higher in night-shot mode, so good B&W footage
can be had in light levels too low for normal color shooting.