Rating: 
Summary: Only on Amazon.com!
Review: I bought this camera in early December as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend. The price was right, and it looked like a great "beginner" digital camcorder. I shop Amazon.com for electronics not only for the good deals, but because of consumer reviews -- I read all of them for this product. I really appreciated the negative ones along with the positive. It is now day two with the camcorder and he's still very, very happy with it. I'm still waiting for the tape to get eaten, or the display to become grainy, BUT I feel confident that should a problem arise, Amazon.com will treat my return fairly and efficently. His only complaint with the camera is that the instruction booklet is confusing. They don't explain CLEARLY what does what, what all the pieces are, etc. But after you play around and experiment, this is a great beginner camcorder.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, like others said, it's a great deal, and a good camcord
Review: I've owned it for 20 days, and I am still exploring its many interesting features. The video is great, the sound is superb. 26 optical zoom is the highest range as I know. I would still buy it even without this several hundreds digital zoom. Low light is really good.Someone complaint grainy? a little, but try gamma/Brighter button, it can improve a lot. Cat's Eye may help you to find your lost wedding ring in very low light (if in no light, your cat may help if she agree to). Remote control is so useful when you want to film/shot yourself, and the zoom and volumn control on the remoter are really great!
I got my 64M memory just now, tried the still on memory, convient, I also ordered a 5-in-1 memory reader from ebay, that can solve the low downloading speed issue, and it's also useful for your digital camera or future digital camera.
BTW, this babe works very quiet. If yours is noisy, that's not normal, sorry. The still feature on this camcorder can not replace a real digital camera, so do other high-end DVs. I learnt that just now, but it still gave me a lot of fun. The stills in bright light is good.
Battery come with this camcorder doesn't last long. You definitly need a BT-L441 or equivalent which suppose to double the recording time. I am luckily to have one green blown pixel on my LCD, actually I've already forgot it.
Not tried 1394 yet, I'd like to read some feed back on this.
Oh, price? You've known that how that got many reviews.
Don't forget to Read manual!!
I am happy to have it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for sports technique analysis
Review: I am a national-level Olympic weightlifter and bought this camera (...) to analyze my weightlifting techniqe. So far, it has worked great. The 26x optical zoom allows my wife to take close up videos of my lifts even in a large arena. Additionally, since the camera is digital, it is possible to zoom in on part of the immage AFTER it has been recorded. This was very useful for me. My wife taped the lifters and the scoreboard at my last meet. To get a good view of the lifts, when I watched the tape, I could zoom in on that area. The one catch is that you lose resolution when doing this. I also like the ease that I can create videos for the computer with the camera. I bought a firewire card to go with the camera, generated videos of the last meet, and posted them on the web for my coach to analyze. If you post pictures on the web, this camera can take digital pictures, or you can make digital pictures from the digital video you take. They are probably not high enough resolution to print to paper, but they look fine on a computer screen. Actually, if you printed 3"x5" pictures, they would probably look really good. I tried to print an 8"x11" low resolution picture. In reading some reviews of the camera on this and other pages, it was unclear if the camera came with a flash memory card to save digital pictures on. My camera did not come with the card. All in all, this camera is a great tool to analyze my lifting technique. For the extra (...) I paid over a non-digital camera, the extra features are really worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect, Ideal, Terrific, Wonderful for the first-time buyer
Review: I researched camcorders for 30+ hours, and decided on this one because of price & moderate reviews. After having used it for 2 weeks, I LOVE IT! I've had not any problems and have enjoyed feeding the video into my computer for editing and then sending it back to the tape.(Pinnacle Studio7 Rocks!!) I understand that to more educated camera people out there this camera is poor quality, but for shooting my newborn son it is terrific!
Rating:
Summary: Great camera for the price
Review: I bought this camera about a month ago and havne't had any problems. The picture quality is pretty good, as long as you have plenty of light. In low-light situations the picture does get grainy unless you use the cat's-eye/night setting (which is only black & white). The user interface isn't great, but I wouldn't say it's hard to use once you get used to it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good price but not worth it.
Review: I got this because of the price and rebate. However, picture quality is questionalbe. In a fully lit room it is just as good as any normal analog 8mm. But when the lights get a tad low... say for recording a community play picture quality is terrible. No amount of gamma or cats eye can save your video from the grainy look. What more terrible about it is that the viewfinder and LCD dont even show it. You have to wait to you get home to view it, by then its too late. I got it yesterday, and its going back to tomorrow. I'll just save for a few more months and get something better. Cheers,
Rating:
Summary: Best deal on the web!
Review: First of all, I am a professional Videographer. I did the research! This Cam is worth twice the money. The most important part of any camera is it's optics. The Canon 26X optical lens is the best on the market, at any price, bar none. The 780 digital is nice dressing, but anything past 60-100 digital zoom degrades the image. 460,000 pixils is low end for mini-dv but that is still about twice the pixils of simple Hi-8, and significantly more than digital 8. The special effects and shooting modes are comparable to most all other mini-dv's on the market. Some cams have more effects but thats just fluff and most folks will never use them anyway. The still cam is good but not great. About the norm for most mini-dv still cams. Night stills can be grainy, but well lit and daylight stills are good enough for the web and small picture prints. This cam shoots well in low light without the cats eye turned on, and the gamma controls are easy (gamma increases the light in a low light situation). The cat's eye shoots well in near darkness but is not infra red (ie: no total darkness). Outputs for every conceivable appliance, along with all the cables except firewire. 12 and 16 bit audio is pretty much the norm of all mini-dv's. The menu is a bit difficult when your shooting on the run, but this cam should be used in auto mode anyway. The supplied battery last longer than most others on the market. 1-2 solid hours depending on use.
In short, for the price, or for a lot more, you just can't beat this deal. The optics alone are worth the total cost. Sharp has earned ar repeat customer in me. Don't forget the free tripod and kit bag. Rob Cook, Lexington Ky.
Rating:
Summary: Don't be persuaded by the negative reviews...
Review: I have read all the reviews, both positive and negative before buying this camera. I was nearly persuaded by the 1 star guy, but I am glad I read on... I think it is evident by all the reviews that this camera is a POOR digital camera (digital still-shot camera). If you want that feature, buy a real stand alone digital camera. Even the best high-dollar Sony's produce poor (though much better) stills compared to the 3-4 Mega-Pixel cameras. Seeing this camera for what it is makes it a steal - this is a low-cost, 'mini-DV' video camera. It takes excellent video recordings, and supports firewire connectivity that can produce any number of stills desired. I give it a rather high 4 star rating because of the price/feature ratio. If this were a (more expensive) camera, I'd rate it a 3, because of the low quality stills. Additionally, I do not have green dots on the display as others have reported. A few more of those reports would change my opinion.
Rating:
Summary: It broke within three days
Review: I purchased the Viewcam, and was pleased with it while it worked (my enjoyment was very short-lived). I was only able to record one 60 minute tape before I got playback and recording errors resulting in horrible picture quality and temporary blockages accompanied with playback mechanism noise. Since I bought the camera before going overseas, and Sharp won't respect the warranty from Switzerland, I will have to find some way to get it sent back and repaired in the U.S. Maybe I will be able to enjoy it next Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: Reliability problem
Review: Sharp VL-WD255U has ALL functions that I want. It can also supports photo on the Smartmedia card. Serial cable make it easy for me to download into any PC. I love all functions. However, after using it for less than two weeks, the picture started to mis-synchronize (Mosaic) and can't be viewed any more. I had a similar experience with the Cannon ZR model. After exactly one year, its picture started to mis-synchronize. Cannon service center (Irvine California) charge about $145 to inspect but do not guarantee to repair it. I sent it for fix. After few months, the problem was back. My first camcorder is the Sharp analog model, also one year life. My colleague told me similar story about his camcorder and suggested me to buy the extended warranty (which may cost about $140 for 4 years).
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