Rating: 
Summary: Sony TRV19 vs. Canon ZR65
Review: If you are interested in a camcorder [in this price range] I would recommend the Canon ZR65. I would also recommend reading the reviews...if you are at all uncertain about what you want. In most cases people will be comparing the ZR65 with the Sony TRV19 so I'll include my personal findings for both in this review.
Pros:
The Canon ZR65 is currently selling at most major retailers for the same price as the Sony TRV19. The Canon ZR65 offers a 20x lens compared with a 10x for the Sony also the Canon beats Sony in Digital Zoom with a 400x vs. 120x. The GretagMacbeth ColorChecker posted on dvspot indicated the ZR65 had slightly better color rendition than the Sony, though I found the color on the ZR65 to be slightly washed out in snow and bright light. The Canon ZR65 has a excellent stabilization system, and offers very solid performance while recording, except at full zoom. The menu is button and toggle driven verses the touch LCD of the Sony. The only draw-back to Sonys touch LCD is that I worried about screen damage due to scratching and smudges during routine use. Additionally some reviews stated that the menu was not very intuitive, both camcorders have very similar menu contents. The Canon also comes with a SD memory which the Sony TRV19 does not, this integrates very nicely with the software package, utilizing the USB interface. The ZR65 also has a color view finder while the Sony TRV19 is black/white.
The software package is very nice, it installed on W2K easily and following the instructions, which were also very clear, I was able to be playing around with stills from the memory card in about 30 minutes.
If you wanted to stick with Sony, and they are a very good manufacturer, I would pay the extra [money] and get the TRV22.
Cons:
We ended up returning our first ZR65 when we found it had extremely loud motor noise, we offered to try another before exchanging it for the TRV22. The second one was fine, no motor noise at all. This may be related to an issue with the Canon motors.
Rating:
Summary: Great Little camcorder - Very well built
Review: It is very light and easy to hold. Great colors, ease of use much better than what I have read. As with all digital camcorders, make sure you black stripe the tapes before using for video editing. Take the camcorder in a dark quiet room, put the blank tape in, lens cap on. Press record and let it do its thing. What you have is a predetermined timeline on the tape that will be there for your DV software to use. Much easier to deal with video edits in this format. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Don't be caught in the dark! Not suitable for indoor use!
Review: Pros: Easy to operate; generally good video quality; strong home-video feature set. Cons: Constant low-level noise; middling low-light performance; no control over auto power-off. Summary: As noted many times before, the indoor lighting is not very good..but I expected this much from reading other reviews. But what has really bummed me out is that 3 months after purchasing the camera (with little use in that time) the camera eject refused to open. So now my cassette is stuck inside the camera. We have provided the maximum power to the camera by using the power from the wall outlet and still no tape eject. My wife contacted Canon support. They told her there are only 2 places in the country that fix Video Cameras..(yeah, ok)..and that we would have to ship back to them. According to their tech support, it sounds like an alignment problem. Sounds like I'm taking my car to the mechanic. They said they would have to get it back to the factory to re-align it. Give me a break. If you do not plan on using this camera for alot of indoor footage..and if you are lucky enough to avoid getting a CANON LEMON, such as mine..you may be okay. But my Canon experience has been horrible .regardless of whether or not the problem is covered under warranty (which it better be) I'm disappointed with my decision to choose this product.
Rating:
Summary: Cool Camera
Review: The first time I saw this camera I've said "Wow... it's so tiny!!!"... It fitted great in my hand and the controls are quite pleasant to use... I've browsed through all features in couple of hours and they looked great... With some imagination I will make very fun movies...
The construction also seems to be very good... Good plastic, few moving parts and robust design... I think it will last for a few years... The stills looked far too grainy... It will make very bad prints, but they are ok to be sent through email... The first time I've used the ZR as a VCR to watch my videos on my TV I've said "Wow... DVD quality!", but my first impressions downloading the movies to my computer it's not that good at all... It's far behind DVD quality, I don't know if I've done everything right (downloaded the movies thru fire-wire with the U-Lead MediaStudio 6.5). Anyway, I've just tried it once and downloaded a couple of minutes of indoor videos... This is my first 5 min impression... The low light resources doesn't work as I'd like to... I rather the IR solution used on Sony products... In the ZR 65 the FPS drops too much and the videos loses somes frames... Also, the image is too dark and you can't see things as with the IR solution from Sony (Night Vision)... I've read a lot of reviews here at amazon and I didn't hear any motor noise from the camera that the ZR 40, 45, 50 seemed to have... The audio is very good, but sometimes the wind makes a very irritating noise... I'll try the wind shield next time... Well... to sum up... It's a good entry level camera... It has lot's of resources, it's small, the controls are user-friendly and the design is nice and robust... The cons are the bad video quality indoors (grainy), the low-light resources (sony stuff works much better) and the low quality stills... ...
Rating: 
Summary: An entry-level camera with too many shortcomings
Review: The only good thing about this entry-level camcorder is its low cost. However, the poor quality should be of a great concern: 1. It takes the camera too long to re-focus when you zoom in/out.
2. The digital zoom is virtually useless although the 20X optical zoom is reasonable.
3. There is an audio/video synchronization issue. The video appears to have a fraction second of delay.
4. When a recording involves some quick motions, say playing a violin, the motion will become blurry. I have never experienced this even in the first generation Sony MiniDV camcorder.
5. The playback sound is poor, stemming from the low-quality speaker. I am very disappointed at this camcorder. Canon offers good digital cameras, but this product line is light years behind other brands.
Rating:
Summary: solid video in well lit situations, 1MP still capability
Review: the zr65 is in the middle of canon's zr series. upgrades over the zr60 include a more powerful optical zoom (20x vs 18x) and still photo capability of 1 megapixel, USB port, and direct printing capability. pros:
- powerful 20x zoom. while less powerful than its sibling (22x for zr70), 20x zoom is still better than most (sonys typically have 10x zoom).
- miniDV media is widely supported.
- generally good video quality in well lit situations.
- pass-through analog-digital conversion.
- many optional accessories using the accessory shoe.
- great connectivity options: firewire, USB, S-video, headphone, mic input, etc.
- 1 megapixel still photo capability.
- direct printing capability.
- low price, okay value. cons:
- the deal breaker for me is poor low light performance - expect very grainy video unless the room is well lit.
- the accessory shoe is not a hot shoe; this means that while you can get a third party video light, the camcorder will have absolutely zero interaction with the light. contrast this with sony, which has some video lights that will even adjust light intensity automatically depending on inputs from the camcorder.
- colors a bit washed out in videos.
- included battery life could be better.
- bottom loading cassette - can't remove tape while camcorder is on a tripod.
- motor noise can be heard when recording a quiet room.
- the supplied 8MB SD card is inadequate - be prepared to shell out a few more bucks for more memory.
- while easy to hold, this camcorder is a little bigger than its competition: 2.3"W x 5.8"D x 4.1"H, weighing 18.5 oz. for its feature set, it is hard to beat the price of the zr65, but you get what you pay for. if you shoot mainly in well lit situations, this may work for you. for low light situations, you can also use a video light. but for outdoor shoots with low light, video lights won't help much either. check out the panasonic gs70 and sony trv33 as alternatives (more expensive though). i hope this helps your buying decision. peace.
Rating:
Summary: Great quality except in low light!
Review: This camcorder has a lot going for it: it's small and lightweight and very easy to use. It has one of the best digitial zooms of any camcorder on the market (20X) and is loaded with lots of special effects. The quality of the video in good lighting conditions or outdoor filming is excellent...very clear and sharp. It also converts analog to digital which is a major plus. And the price is pretty reasonable for all that you get. That being said, I have to mention the cons: the qulaity of the video in low light situations is very poor...the video is fuzzy and blurrry (just like most of the reviews say). And using the "night mode" or "low light mode" does brighten the picture a bit but the quality is still not acceptable. And there is a constant motor noise when you turn the camcorder on. However, when I play the video back on my TV you do NOT hear the motor noise (so I can overlook that). Overall, it's a good camcorder for the price and I would recommend it. It has a lot more pros than cons. Just don't buy it if most of your recording will be in low light.
Rating:
Summary: Great quality except in low light!
Review: This camcorder has a lot going for it: it's small and lightweight and very easy to use. It has one of the best digitial zooms of any camcorder on the market (20X) and is loaded with lots of special effects. The quality of the video in good lighting conditions or outdoor filming is excellent...very clear and sharp. It also converts analog to digital which is a major plus. And the price is pretty reasonable for all that you get. That being said, I have to mention the cons: the qulaity of the video in low light situations is very poor...the video is fuzzy and blurrry (just like most of the reviews say). And using the "night mode" or "low light mode" does brighten the picture a bit but the quality is still not acceptable. And there is a constant motor noise when you turn the camcorder on. However, when I play the video back on my TV you do NOT hear the motor noise (so I can overlook that). Overall, it's a good camcorder for the price and I would recommend it. It has a lot more pros than cons. Just don't buy it if most of your recording will be in low light.
Rating: 
Summary: Rich Feature Set - Fundamentally Poor Camera
Review: To it's credit, this camera has alot of neat bells and whistles - the most exciting of which is the 20x optical zoom. It's easy and intuitive to use without having to spend much time in the manual, and ergonomically feels pretty good to hold and shoot. Outdoors, this camera takes video of phenomenal quality. If an outdoor mid-range single CCD camcorder is what you're in the market for, the Canon is not a bad choice. Unfortunately, despite its deceptively low 1.4 lux rating, this camera completely disappoints in anything but the very brightest of conditions (> 100 lux). I literally had to shoot within 2 or 3 feet of a 300W incandescent light source to get any kind of acceptable image. Even in modest indoor lighting conditions (i.e. a living room with 2 or 3 60W incandescent lights), the images are extremely grainy and washed out. There are a number of tricks that some have applied (adjusting exposure, changing the shooting mode to 'low light', limiting zoom, disabling image stabilization, and so forth) - and while these did improve the image quality somewhat, the improvement was marginal at best. The image stablization and auto focus capabilities of this camera leave something to be desired as well - even at minimal zoom. You'll be disappointed at the slow response and jittery motion as you zoom in and out on your subject. Again, I think much of this can be attributed to the camera's low light response. I found I frequently had to set a zoom and manually focus the unit to get any kind of acceptable picture while filming indoors. The refresh on the low light modes is also very low and renders it almost impractical for anything but tripod use. After a fair bit of research, the limitation of this camera seems to stem from it's 640K 1/6" CCD. The smaller CCD (which seems to be more prevalent in the newer cameras) are much less sensitive to light (and cheaper to manufacture). Inevitably, I traded my ZR65 in for a Sony TRV22 with a 1/4" CCD. While I lament not having 20x zoom, the light sensitivity of the TRV22 to the ZR65 is night and day (or day and night as the case would be). The autofocus is far more responsive, the pictures are not grainy - indoor or out - and the night shot mode on the sony actually takes a pretty decent B&W image in the near absence of any light. You can (and should expect) better in quality indoor shooting from your digital camcorder - and these products do exist, but do your homework in advance. This camera is lacking in the basics and will disappoint those users who simply want to videotape their family, children, and day-to-day social events.
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