On 26 Nov 2001 13:01:39 -0800, JoeMik@mail.com (Joe Mikolajczyk) wrote

>I'm considering the Sony TRV30 for our first camcorder. My questions
>are about the "Progressive shutter" listed as a feature on Sony's
>website. Does this work the same as "progressive scan" found in DVD
>players? That is, does the camera capture the entire view for each
>frame (or are the frames interlaced)? Correct me if I'm wrong, but
>still shots captured from recorded video should be much sharper if the
>video was recorded with progressive scan as opposed to an interlaced
>recording, right?
>
>And one general question: is this a good camera for a first time
>buyer? I'm tech saavy, so I'm not afraid of the features being over
>my head, but this will be used for everything from a weekend adventure
>in the Jeep to capturing baby's first steps, editing the video on the
>computer, and sending to grandma and grandpa out of state. Everything
>I've read indicates that the TRV30 is a good choice for all this, but
>I'd like to gather some independant opinions from those of you that
>aren't looking to pad your comission checks.

The TRV30 is a compact one chip camcorder with
a picture with high sharpness, excellent color
neutrality and saturation, acceptable tonality,
a high degree of negative picture artifacting
("stairstepping" and "flapping" of edges along
scan lines - quite annoying to me...), and
relatively poor low-light ability (compared with
the larger/heavier/bit-more-expensive 3-chip
TRV900). The sound is good, as are the 640x480
stills (larger ones have considerable color
noise). Small batteries will run the camera
for very long times. The viewfinders are both
sharp, but the eyepiece finder brightness
cannot be turned down far enough to give a
good idea of exposure (and there is no AE-bias
to reduce auto exposure to correct a tendency
to overexpose exterior scenes - though using
the portrait program mode can help). The tape
bottom-loading is annoying if you use a tripod
much. The lens "wide-angle" position is not
as wide as usual (which already is not very
wide...), and it is not easy to find WA
converters that work really well with this
camera. As with other Sony camcorders, the "PS"
mode is optimized for stills specifically, and
the motion-video looks worse with it engaged
(I think with the TRV30 you cannot engage PS
mode for motion-video, but you would not want
to, anyway, judging from what the image looks
like at the "S" output in still-mode...).
Altogether, with subject matter that doesn't
emphasize its picture problems, the TRV30 is
capable of surprisingly good-looking video
and good sound - but it is still a compromise
compared with the TRV900 and VX2000, and its
price is so close to that of the TRV900 that
I would consider looking at it also...