Rating: 
Summary: Annoying motor noise
Review: Based on good reviews, I bought this Sony trv22. It's making a very annoying motor noise. I could clearly hear the noise on the recording. The picture quality is a little bit better than my old Hi8 camcorder. But I couldn't stand on that noise from the motor. I took out the tape from Sony, and tried on Panasonic camcorder at the retail store. It has much less noise. But the image stabilization is much better on Sony. I thought mine was defect, but after I tried on my friend's Sony PC105 which makes similar noise, I realized it is normal for Sony. I returned mine back.
Rating: 
Summary: TRV22: all-around winning performance
Review: Bought my TRV22 online after lots of research, got a great deal from butterfly.com. Low shipping cost and 2-day FedEx, was delivered on 7/9/03. Bought a Tamrac 5201 bag from canogacamera.com that fits my Digital Camera as well as the TRV22 with room to spare. Also, a spare battery, and 10 DV tapes from ecost.com.The TRV22 performs as advertised: great picture, very effective steady shot, great low-light performance. With video this great you should seriously consider buying a DVD burner and some entry-level software. I picked up a Plextor 504A DVD+R burner, and use Pinnacle Studio 8 for video capture. Don't even bother with the software that comes with the TRV22, Pinnacle makes it foolproof. One more thing: buy a IEEE1394 Firewire cable for transferring the video to the PC, but try sfcable.com for a price that is roughly 1/8 of what Sony wants for the iLink cable. Get the 6-pin to 4-pin model for a PC. Also, I was using my video capture card to convert VHS tapes to digital, but the TRV22 has the same capability. I tried making two DVDs, one with the video capture card, and one passing it through the TRV22. The TRV22 version was far superior, much better final product. Bottom line: you can't beat these features for the price.
Rating:
Summary: Motor Noise an Issue
Review: Camcorder design is very nice - fit and finish are good - and it feels good in your hands. Touch screen is clever, but difficult to use for some fundamental controls like exposure and white balance adjustments. Viewfinder and lcd is sharp. Video quality is good - indoors and out, sharp with good color. Indoor with low light is not bad - no video noise apparent. I very much wanted to keep this camcorder, just for the size. If the camera is small it is more likely to be carried and used, especially when traveling, backpacking, biking, etc... But: I find the motor noise objectionable, and this is very disappointing. The microphone on the camcorder picks up the sound of the motor, and records it on the tape. It IS apparent on playback - quite distracting. Obviously, for loud scenes, vacations, parties, etc it won't be that noticable, but for people/conversations/interviews/outdoor scenery it is bad enough to be a problem. An external mike may be helpul in reducing the problem, but I haven't tried one. That would defeat the purpose of a small, quick, easy to carry camcorder. The TRV38 is larger with higher res, but also has less motor noise (still some though), and is an alternative although a more costly one.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific little machine!
Review: Factors important to us in selecting this product, in roughly this order, were:
* it uses MiniDV tapes, which I preferred to DVDs and CDs and other media because of resolution, cost, and ease of use
* it uses the same memory sticks as our still camera
* it includes an A>D coverter - that is, it has an input so I can connect our VCR and transfer old VHS tapes (like our honeymoon) to DVD; to do that otherwise would have meant a 100-200 dollar device added to the camera or our PC
* it includes 3 forms of digital output (S, USB, and firewire) so that I can transfer the memory stick and miniDV to a PC, for storage and backup and uploading and DVDs
* it had a good lens (Carl Zeiss) and 8x optical zoom (digital zoom isn't the same; it just stretches the pixels) * it got great reviews, including from Marco
* it has decent still resolution, but we didn't expect to rely on it for stills; paying for still resolution is expensive (about 100 bucks per megapixel in a still camera, more in a video camera)
* it was on sale at Circuit City, with a free extra battery, camera bag, and light lens (although that was last fall) Things not to be fooled by, if you look at other products:
* digital zoom
* some models with a higher resolution (e.g. the TRV33) actually do poorer in low light *and* dont handle motion as well
* an included light (built-in lights are apparently a heat problem, and a better attachment is under 20 bucks)
* a bigger viewfinder (ours is 2.5"; smaller would have been okay; bigger would have been silly)
* paying too much for still resolution (1 to 2 megapixels is more than enough for email, websites, and small prints; 5 megapixels is a waste unless you're printing portraits)
Rating:
Summary: Terrific little machine!
Review: Factors important to us in selecting this product, in roughly this order, were:
* it uses MiniDV tapes, which I preferred to DVDs and CDs and other media because of resolution, cost, and ease of use
* it uses the same memory sticks as our still camera
* it includes an A>D coverter - that is, it has an input so I can connect our VCR and transfer old VHS tapes (like our honeymoon) to DVD; to do that otherwise would have meant a 100-200 dollar device added to the camera or our PC
* it includes 3 forms of digital output (S, USB, and firewire) so that I can transfer the memory stick and miniDV to a PC, for storage and backup and uploading and DVDs
* it had a good lens (Carl Zeiss) and 8x optical zoom (digital zoom isn't the same; it just stretches the pixels)* it got great reviews, including from Marco
* it has decent still resolution, but we didn't expect to rely on it for stills; paying for still resolution is expensive (about 100 bucks per megapixel in a still camera, more in a video camera)
* it was on sale at Circuit City, with a free extra battery, camera bag, and light lens (although that was last fall) Things not to be fooled by, if you look at other products:
* digital zoom
* some models with a higher resolution (e.g. the TRV33) actually do poorer in low light *and* dont handle motion as well
* an included light (built-in lights are apparently a heat problem, and a better attachment is under 20 bucks)
* a bigger viewfinder (ours is 2.5"; smaller would have been okay; bigger would have been silly)
* paying too much for still resolution (1 to 2 megapixels is more than enough for email, websites, and small prints; 5 megapixels is a waste unless you're printing portraits)
Rating: 
Summary: Overall, pleasing.
Review: First, the good stuff. Some people feel like the touchscreen lcd viewfinder is nothing more than a gimmick. Not me. With all menu buttons illuminated on the lcd screen you never have to worry about finding the right button in low light situations. The manual focus option combined with the touchscreen makes for a great setup- you just touch the part of the screen that shows the subject you want in focus and that's what it focuses on. Pretty handy. Manual exposure is set up the same way. If you don't like the touchscreen method I just described, you can focus and set the exposure in the more tradtional way- changing it gradually untill it gets to where you want it, or you can use auto-focus/ exposure too.
The Carl Zeis lense provides excellent picture quality. Maybe not professional quality, but I'm not a professional, so I wouldn't know.
Like some other folks I forked over the extra hundred bucks for the trv22 rather than the trv19 because I wanted to be able to transfer old analog home videos to digital, then to DVD. The trv22 does this like a champ. Just make sure there's no tape in the camera or it won't do it. The added still shot capability I would say is a gimmick. Who wants half-megapixel stills? Not me. The sales guy at Best Buy tried to get me to spring for a bigger memory stick- yeah right. All I wanted was the analog to digital capability. Make sure you have a fire-wire cable or you won't be able to send the digitized image to your computer.
I only have one complaint. The camera's microphone picks up the noise the camera makes while it's running. So most of my tapes have a faint buzzing noise in the background. When I first got the camera I exchanged it for another one (same model)because of this problem. But the new one did the same thing. I guess it's not a big problem, some people don't notice it, and if the subject you're recording has an average amount of noise you probably won't hear it at all. But it does happen. That's my only complaint. Otherwise this camera has been great.
Rating:
Summary: Optimal feature set for the right price
Review: Have been waiting for two years for price to come down on DV camcorders, and still wanted to do analog to digital encoding for old Hi8 and VHS tapes. This unit is the best I have found so far, and I have been using it on the road for the last 4 weeks without problems. Reliable hardware, intuitive on-screen menus, makes shooting, playback and dubbing a snap. And did I mention the weight, barely more than a digital camera? I also purchased Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD for capture and DVD burning: what used to take me 2 hours in encoding and editing takes me about 30 min, with a better end product.
Rating:
Summary: Video Editing
Review: hi ,
I purchased this camera last week . It has great result. Only problem i m facing with this camera is when i transfer it to cd image quality gets detoriate. also its shaky. Is there any way to improve video quality .
Rating:
Summary: Using the Sony LCD in sunlight
Review: I bought a Sony DCR-TRV22 a few days ago. and am very happy with it. I haven't used all the features yet, but I have downloaded video to computer, printed stills, and had a lot of fun. The size is just perfect. I have one complaint which may make me return the camcorder. You can not use the LCD screen outside on a sunny day. You have to use the viewfinder. I wear glasses, and using a viewfinder all day won't work. I am trying to find out if this is the norm with all camcorders; and then I will have to make a decision. I will keep you posted.
Rating:
Summary: Please tell about camcorder to TV cable...
Review: I bought Sony TRV22 and it includes a cable from camcorder to TV. However, someone told me that I should get a Monster Cable from camcorder to TV because the one came with camcorder is slow and not sharp on TV screen. I am not sure unless I compare images using both cables. Could someone tell me the answer?
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