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Sony DCRTRV27 MiniDV Digital Handycam Camcorder w/ 3.5" LCD, MPEG EX, Memory Stick  & Mega Pixel Video/ Still

Sony DCRTRV27 MiniDV Digital Handycam Camcorder w/ 3.5" LCD, MPEG EX, Memory Stick & Mega Pixel Video/ Still

List Price: $1,119.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great sony product!
Review: ... I have had nothing but praise when it comes to this camera. The only down side is the snap shots. I Mega pixel is not that much, but it's enough for web publishing. It takes great video and the quality and sound is awesome !!! I also bought the 9 hour battery, since it consumes a lot of juice. Have fun!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nothing to dislike
Review: After one VHS and two Hi-8 camcorders, this is my first digital machine. I think it is superb. The pictures are incredibly sharp and clean. I didn't expect to use the memory stick much, but I'm already snapping and emailing loads of pictures of our kid. (The downside is that it subtracts from the number of quality film stills I take.) The 27 is quite easy to use and feature-rich. It is a cinch to plug it into my Mac and edit movies. The one glitch I had was finding a memory stick reader that worked properly, but I seem to have solved that. I think an accessory light is essential for better results. I bought Sony's 10/20 watt (less than 10 is too little light). I also bought 2 NPO-QM91 batteries and a Sony SQ quick charger. This battery is necessary for the light, and it works in the camcorder to give something like 6 hours of power. The 10x zoom isn't spectacular, but usually good enough, and Sony sells a magnifying lens. As always, the digital zoom is awful. The image stabilizer works well and I hear zero camera noise on playback. This camcorder and a Mac (and I suppose even a PC!) are a perfect home film making combination. It's a splendid camera.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Little Giant
Review: After reading many reviews and shoping at several stores, I took home my new Sony Handycam. ( DCR-TRV27 )
Don't let the compact size of this little giant fool you!
The power and fetures found in the TRV27 are many you might pay more money for in other cameras. The image quality was great!
I used it to record live music with very nice sound & video.
Low light video was brighter than stills in same light.
I found the controls laid out well and easy to use.
The manual that came with it was good for basic operation, but when geting onto some of the advanced operations it was some times confusing. My bigest dislike about the camera is loading tapes is done from the bottom of the camera. If you have it mouted on a tripod, you must remove it for tape loading. Overal I love the camera and would recomend it to anyone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Reliable
Review: Easy to use, takes great video, what else could you want?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sony DCR TRV27
Review: Excellent camcorder!

Was looking for TRV30 which went out of production and came across this one.

Pros: 1) clear and vibrant video picture (video 690K pixels and still 1 mega pixels CCD)
2) Fast focusing when using zoom in auto mode
3) simple to use knobs and buttons
4) Value for price
5) still photo fairly good with 1 megapixel rating
6) video looks great on TV (at least in Sony Wega TV) than the LCD screen (May be I have reduce the brightness of screen)

Cons:
1) 10x optical and 120x digital zoom slightly less than the competion JVC, Panasonic, Canon
2) Battery life is short with LCD usage
3) No memory stick holder/case supplied
4) No flashlight/ video light (have to buy separately)

Will recommend for anyone who wants good decent video with high resolution and money to spend.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Value for Money
Review: Good overall camcoder. Sharp pictures when indoors with lighting.
The only missing feature would be USB Streaming. Cannot be used as a Web Cam.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great video, poor stills
Review: I bought it for video and it does an excellent job. Easy to use, good battery life, and top quality picture and sound. I didn't get it to take stills but a 1 meg picture is useless, a higher res picture would put this over the top.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not satisfactory
Review: I bought this camcorder 11 months ago. Used it 7-8 times. Now the tape is getting stuck. It is difficult to get through with Sony customer support and when I get in, they said parts are under warranty , but labour is not. It costs usd 220 to repair it. Picture under low light is not good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Versatile and High Quality
Review: I bought this unit for Christmas 2003. After one year, the device is still flawless.

The features are more than enough to satisfy the recreational videographer. I usually use the automatic settings (auto focus, auto brightness, etc.) whenever I can, but I'm glad the device has so many options, if I find myself in a situation where I need them.

The 9-point auto focus is spectacular. While most camcorders use a single point to focus, this unit has a group of 9 points or boxes it uses to determine the optimum focus for the shot. It's really amazing, and almost instantaneous.

I love the small size, and the 3.5" LCD screen is much better than the 2.5". When taking video of people, especially kids, they love it when I flip the screen toward them, so they can see themselves. To them, it's like they are on TV. They tend to be more expressive. When I do this, I just look throught the viwfinder to keep the subject in frame.

It's rugged. My wife dropped it at Disney World 9 months ago. It scratched the case a bit, but otherwise the unit wasn't phased.

I've made a few CD-ROM-based videos on my computer. The Sony TRV27 easily transfers video to the computer through the Firewire connection. The USB connection also works, but the compressed image quality is far worse the the pure Firewire transfer.

It's nice to have the capabilities to shoot digital stils. However, the 640x480 1 megapixel image is too low-res for printing phoro-lab quality prints on a photo inkjet printer.

I think of the digital camera feature as a quite a bit above most cell phone cameras, and quite a bit below most 3+ megapixel cameras.

Battery life is great. I have not yet bought a spare, and haven't needed it. If I shot more video, I would probably get one of the larger batteries, which would, however, make the unit a little heavier.

All in all, this is an excellent product. I'm sure the newest models are even better. Sony costs a bit more than some of the other brands, but when it comes to camcorders, you can't beat 'em.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Seeing is truly believing
Review: I did my homework on digital camcorders, and in the end came down to the conclusion that I only had two brand choices: Sony or Canon. Now my only dilema left was the style of camera that I was to purchase. By that I mean the "ultra compact" upright style, like the Canon Elura40MC and Sony DCRPC101, or the traditional style of the Sony DCRTRV27. It should be obvious by the fact that I am writing this review that I chose the Sony DCRTRV27.

One of the reviews I read said that the upright camera wasn't comfortable to hold in comparison to the horizontal style of the TRV27. I could not agree more. I held the Canon for about two minutes and had a hand cramp. The TRV27 is certainly small enough too. I also noticed immediately, that it was near impossible to hold the Canon Elura 40MC without covering the light sensor with my finger. I would say that this is a serious design flaw on Canon's part.

That aside, the features of this camera far exceed my expectations for the price point. There are almost too many features! In all seriousness, the video I have captured so far has all been excellent, and I could not be more satisfied. The most common complaint I read about this camera (and all others BTW) is that it is not that great in low light situations. All I can say is that 1) Even cameras costing 3x this have the same issue and 2) this is easily remedied with a $... video light. For those reasons, I will not take any points away from this product. For me (first time camcorder owner with demanding tastes) this camcorder is fantastic.

The only additional feature I would like to comment on is the digital photo quality. This is NOT a digital camera. The photo quality is fine for what it is, and to expect more would not make sense. I am more impressed by the 1 trick pony type of electronics, as I think that multi-purpose products tend to do a lot of things fair, and don't do anything great.

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