Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Little DV Camera + Advice on Cheapest DV options!
Review: April 2002I found this camera ...on Amazon six months ago and was amazed with the picture quality and comfort of use of this camera at the price. I am giving the camera a full thumbs up after more than 6 months of use! I like the no viewfinder concept... (I wear glasses and it is a pain to look thru viewfinders!) You also center the frame well - what you see in the LCD is what you get! The camera has a IR remote and a reversible viewscreen which allows me and my wife to take our pictures without anyone elses help. Just turn the camera towards you and you can see yourselves on the small LCD screen and use the remote even to zoom upto 10X. (It has digital zoom, but a purist like me cannot use digital zoom!) I bought a Inland Firewire Card (which came with a ULead videosystems Videomaker software)...and am very pleased with the quality of the home VCD that I made from it. Of course, I had an old AMD K6-350 Desktop running Windows 98 - which meant downloading patches for DV editing from inlandfaq dot com site and buying a Maxtor 40GB Harddrive ... to upgrade my old and shaky compaq PC! I am finally happily creating great home movies with lots of special effects at a premium price .. and recommend everyone to do the same. Do not waste money when you can save! DV quality is within your reach...P>As for still pictures, I find grabbing the DV frames at 780x640 resolution using the DV software is the best way. You really donot need a memory stick or more resolution, it prints upto 5x6 prints, even 8x10s look great if printed on a laser printer... Your pictures look great as 10x zoom lets you take great closeups of just the face! I find my pictures better than ones taken on 2megapixel still cameras as the closeup really makes up for lower resolution esp in natural light conditions. Happy DV editing!
Rating:
Summary: Sharp vls20u digital viewcam with 3' color lcd screen
Review: Excellent choice for a digital movie camera. Takes stills from 1 to 16 frames per snap. Hook up to a TV to view movies or review thru the lcd screen, Never had any problems.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp vls20u digital viewcam with 3' color lcd screen
Review: Excellent choice for a digital movie camera. Takes stills from 1 to 16 frames per snap. Hook up to a TV to view movies or review thru the lcd screen, Never had any problems.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Little DV Camera + Advice on Cheapest DV options!
Review: I found this camera(...) on Amazon three months ago and was amazed with the picture quality and comfort of use of this camera at the price. I am giving the camera a full thumbs up after about 3 months of use! I like the no viewfinder concept... (I wear glasses and it is a pain to look thru viewfinders!) The camera has a IR remote and a reversible viewscreen which allows me and my wife to take our pictures without anyone elses help. Just turn the camera towards you and you can see yourselves on the small LCD screen and use the remote even to zoom upto 10X. (It has digital zoom, but a purist like me cannot use digital zoom!) (...)Of course, I had an old AMD K6-350 Desktop running Windows 98 -(...) I set the films I am finally happily creating great home movies with lots of special effects at a premium price (...) and recommend everyone to do the same. Do not waste money when you can save! DV quality is within your reach for under $500! Happy DV editing!
Rating: 
Summary: Great camera, but what about at night?
Review: I got this camera for my birthday and I really like it. However, I've found that it doesn't work very well at night b/c the lighting system is not bright enough. Is there any way I could find an external light to add to the camera so that it'll be able to record images in the dark?
Rating:
Summary: Quite a handy little camcorder
Review: I have had the Viewcam for a year now, and feel that I can make an adequate review of it now. So here it is. Problems/Repairs: 0. Things that impressed me: Resolution quality over VHS/8mm, low-light capabilities, sound quality, overall size, and that cool swivel action. Things that did not impress me: Cost of DV tapes, Resolution quality compared with newer miniDV cams, still shot pics, battery life. Overall: This is a very handy little camera, and I have enjoyed using it. It had firewire, which is the only way to go if your editing on your PC - and the picture/sound quality is far superior than any other format (don't let the whole Digital8 thing fool you). The price on Amazon was a steal at the time, and I do not regret getting it at all.
Rating:
Summary: best camera 2 buy
Review: i love this camera so easy and fun
Rating:
Summary: Great Camera!!!
Review: I love this little camera. It's ease of use, huge LCD, compact & light weight features are all items that make this camera great! I hate viewfinders, I also hate the buttons of most cameras being on the side of the camera, where I can't read them unless I move the camera around. This camera's buttons are right under the screen where you need them. You never need to use a monitor with the 3" color LCD. I also own a very high end Hi8 camera (Canon L1)which is way too complicated for me to enjoy all the features. I love this camera.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer Beware
Review: I owned this viewcam for about a year and enjoyed it for the most part. It does have some serious quirks that any potential buyer should be aware of. Apparently this viewcam is known for recording the sound of the camcorder recording, resulting in a background hum on your tapes. I found other reviews that stated the same problem. Sometimes the hum is too loud and drowns out the audio you are trying to capture. Another problem is locating a head cleaner. The manual claims that they are available and after searching every major camera store around, I was unable to locate one. When the heads get dirty, your video quality quickly degrades and becomes "blocky" and distorted. Then I experienced a problem with playing back my tapes. The sound came and went and I could not transfer the video to my vcr because of video interferance and no sound. I tried to locate a service center to repair my viewcam and found out there are only 2 authorized service centers in the US! One center you have to send a check for [money] and be willing to spend at least that much to have your camcorder repaired...if its more, they will call you first. They would not tell me how much they charge for labor per hour and said it is all worked into the overall cost of repair. The other place you have to send [money] to cover the cost of the estimate but it can be applied toward the overall cost of repair. Needless to say, my estimate came back at nearly [money]! All I can say is, buyer beware. I opted not to get the camcorder fixed and bought an analog camcorder that I am even more pleased with and service is available locally. I don't feel that this Sharp Viewcam is worth the money and the headaches associated with a miniDV digital camcorder.
Rating:
Summary: Small and easy to use
Review: I researched for about 2 months and this was the best deal on a digital camcorder out there. Takes great video and is incredibly east to use. Only issue - you will need to buy software for this item to do any video editing.
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