On Tue, 11 Jun 2002 00:36:57 +0200, Panagiotis Issaris wrote:

>I'm looking forward to buying my first digital camcorder next
>week, after spending too much time looking out for reviews on
>the web. I actually never found an up-to-date review site
>with actual snapshot of the recorded video. This makes it
>very hard to chose a camcorder, I mean specifications by themselves
>don't mean that much...
>
>Three camcorders captured my intention, namely the Canon MV550i,
>the Sony TRV25 and the Panasonic NV-GS5. They're all about the
>same price.
>
>I'm having difficulties chosing between these three camcorders,
>since the deciding factor for me, is the video quality itself.
>Unfortunately, that's exactly the thing you can't see on reviewsites.
>(Or they put up some downscaled highly compressed video, so you
>actually can't compare qualities anymore).

Comparative frame-grabs, with descriptions of the
motion-video characteristics, is the best available
way to go short full-quality motion-video, currently
impossible to show on the 'net... That is what I show
in my reviews at: www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/articles.html.

>I've been told that the stabilisor is a very important factor when
>it comes to video quality, non-optical stabilisors would give
>bad, blurry video. If this is true, why aren't there more digital
>consumer camcorders with optical stabilisors? The only one I could
>find, is the Canon MVX1 (Optura 100MC in the USA).

The above is not necessarily true - it depends on
the implementation, and most current non-optical
stabilizers are very good (well, Sony's, anyway...;-).

>So my questions basically boil down to this:
>1. Are optical stabilisors really that important for video quality
>if you're not using a tripod?

No.

>2. Do the Sony's make up for the lack of an optical stabiliser with
> their higher pixelcount?

Yes - and often produce a sharper than usual video
image in addition...

>3. Are there any sites that have framegrabs from MiniDV shootings
>made by recent cams (preferably the ones I listed above)?

Probably too recent - we can't all own/try-out all
the latest gear and review it (for free...;-).

>And if not, if there's anyone in this group that owns any of the
>cams listed above, would it be possible to send me such a framegrab
>so I can compare videoquality?

Motion-effects will not generally show in the
frame-grabs, and these can be "nasty" under some
conditions...

>4. What do you think about the three cams listed above? Which one
>would give me the best video quality? (Not taking into account
>gadgets like Bluetooth, stills, USB, I'm not interested in that
>kind of stuff)

*Generally*, at a given model level, Sony camcorders
produce the best image-quality - but for specific
requirements, you may still want to look elsewhere...
For more on what to look for in video images, see:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/vid_pict_characts.htm
And, optimizing one characteristic may cause
degradation of another - there are often
trade-offs/compromises...