: Hi,

: I just bought a new DCR VX-2000 to shoot a short film. I could really use some advice with setting the AGC, white balance, and other manual settings. The instruction booklet is less than clear on how to do this. Also, is the 16:9 setting true? or just a crock. Any help would be of great value, thanks.

: Seth

I have had a VX-2000 only a short time, but...
I did not like the color balance and exposure with mine at default settings, so here is what I like on mine for custom control settings (your defaults may be different): -2 notches on AE bias; +2 notches on white balance; +2 notches on sharpness; 0 change on color saturation and AGC. The DWB preset on mine warms the color slightly from AWB, so if I use this, I back off one notch on the color balance. Set these by pressing the custom
control button at the rear base of the carrying handle. Once the CP menu is open, you can use the usual wheel on the lower back of the VX-2000 to modify settings and enable the CP. As for sound, there are quirks - if you use the internal mic, it works well leaving the AGC on; but most external mics appear to have more gain, causing bad AGC pumping (either a pad or manual sound level control is needed to prevent this [I find that about 2 notches up in manual gain from center is about right for most mics, and the in-viewfinder meter is useful for avoiding clipping - with these settings I do not get the noise described elsewhere, but with more {unnecessary} gain, I do]). BTW, using dual Sennheiser MKE-300 mics on my VX-2000 results in loud hum, but turning off the left mic removes the hum... (using dual Sony ECM-Z157s does not result in hum). As for 16:9, unless you want anamorphic squishing of the image on tape or the throwing away of much of the useable image area, I would forget it (or do it in post, if you must) - there is little enough "film" area to work with as it is, using video, and I prefer to make use of all the pixels possible...;-) Also BTW, there is a camcorder comparison article on my web site, under "I babble" (http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com).