Rating: 
Summary: Easy to use!
Review: -Excellent little camcorder.
-Very impressed with its features.
-Easy to transfer your movies
to a computer.
I do not regret spending my money
on it.
Rating: 
Summary: Motor noise while recording caused by automatic audio gain.
Review: .
1) Solution from Canon's online tech supt website: CanonDvQ. In quiet situations, I can hear the noise of the motor being recorded. What can I do about this? A. Automatic audio gain will set the volume to capture any available noise. In a very quiet setting, this may be the sound of the camcorder motor. To correct for this, provide some 'white' background noise, such as a radio or television. 2) Solution from another user:
Open the mic housing and stuff sound dampening material b/w the mic and the motor. This user said that it works great. 3) Solution from yet another user:
Buy a generic external mic, or Canon's DM-50 Microphone. This completely eliminates the motor noice and improves audio recording, but adds size to the camcorder. Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: Nice but....
Review: After an extensive market review, I decided to buy this one. Recording quality is excellent when you have appropriate light conditions, and it works ok with poor light. Excellent zoom, and very good stabilization features. The digital still camera feature takes average pictures (640*480), good enough if you are just sending them to friends/family and the software included is quite easy to use. In order to download your movies, you must have a firewire connection in your PC. Consider to buy an extra battery. The major problem I found is the fact that the microphone records the camera noises, making your movies have an annoying background sound. This is really unacceptable if you want to have good quality audio. If you are concerned about the sound, I would suggest you either to try another camcorder or wait until Canon fix this model or release a new one. Or, if you have the expertise (I don't have it) edit the film with your PC.
Rating:
Summary: No Complaints here
Review: All these complaints about hum . We have recorded hours of video and have yet to hear any noise that wasn't on our old sony camcorder. The video quality is super crisp, sound is great and still photo is great providing that you don't increase the size of your pictures. But we use a olympus 460 for stills so we don't use the still shot mode. Overall this camera is a great choice for digital vdeo and will be with us for some time to come. Don't think twice about getting one, you won't be sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: Very annoying humming sound - be sure it doesn't bother you
Review: Basically a nice unit. Loaded with all the features you could ever want: plenty of optical zoom, digital stabilizer, very compact size, reasonable warranty, and good looks too. BUT...this camera has a VERY annoying buzzing/humming sound to it. I called Canon and they said it's "normal for that unit." Excuse me? Maybe for some people, the buzz is not annoying. But compared to my cheap, old 8mm, this is much, much noisier. I would recommend you try it before you buy it. Don't get wooed by the display models.
Rating:
Summary: Great Video, Bad Photo's...
Review: Canon did it's homework with this camera. There are endless perks to spicing up your video recordings. Everything is very easily accessible. The buttons are no problem for my fat fingers. Any buyer would be very impressed with this setup and completely satisfied with the video quality. However if you are buying the ZR45MC for the option of digital picture taking, forget it. The photo quality is very low even on the "fine" setting. I couldn't believe how granulated a 4 X 6 inch photo gets. I'm still stuck with carrying both a video and photo camera.
Rating:
Summary: Very good cam/camera
Review: First off, this is my first digital camcorder/camera. I purchased this camera only 3 days ago and I'm already having too much fun with downloading pictures to and from the cam. It's capable of doing all this (and pretty easy I may add) to do all this even if you're a first timer. It comes with a CD with the necessary software and also a manual on how to install the software and how to use it for downloading/uploading pix. Very easy and informative. The MMC card can take as many as 100 pictures at a time, so it's more than enough for me. As for the quality of the camcorder for "regular filming", I'm impressed. It has 7 or 8 different settings for different filming situations such as "sports", "portrait", "night mode", and others. Also, the buttons in this camera don't look as intimidating as some of the others I've seen/used. All buttons are nicely placed on the camera and I have no problems with any of them. Plus, this camera is pretty small for this price. The only ones that I've seen that are this small (or smaller) are the ones in the [price range](and above) range. I got this one for [price], and I'm more than happy with it's $ize ;-) So far, I think I'll be enjoying this camera for a long time. I'm very happy with it and I recommend this for anyone who is just getting into digital cams/camera. It has more than enough features for someone who is just getting into the world of digital camcorders/cameras. The quality of the pictures are not excellent, but I think it's nice enough to even impress some people. I highly recommend this cam/camera. ...
Rating:
Summary: I'm pretty happy with it.
Review: I agree with most of the reviews. I bought the big battery, and found that it lasts long enough for a weekend trip without recharging. Operation is simple, and fairly self explanatory. Downloading stills (via USB) and video (via IEEE) is a snap. Bundled software is adequate. This is a great product all around, and I have only a few minor gripes. 1. The one thing that people have not mentioned so far is the "color night mode" feature is a little misleading. This is NOT the infrared NiteShot found on the Sony products which uses a built-in infrared headlight to take video in total darkness. The disadvantage to this is that the captured video is an eerie green, and you need to be fairly close to the subject. The Canon feature, on the other hand, is simply a very low shutter speed. This allows you to capture video in color, but it is rather grainy and your subject (and your hand) needs to be very still to prevent blurring. It also requires some ambient light. Again, this is not a big deal. 2. The hum everyone talks about. It is a little noticeable during long silences. The internal mic picks up on vibrations from the motor. Just about every recording device with a built-in mic has this problem. Use a wireless external mic if you are a fanatic. 3. Still image quality is pretty poor, but I don't use it very often. 4. FYI, Photo mode (records 5 seconds of still image to video tape) is handy, but it continues to record audio!
Rating:
Summary: great camcorder
Review: I am a first-time camcorder buyer, so I've been researching these for the past couple months. I had my choices narrowed down to the Canon ZR45 and the Sony TRV18. The Canon was smaller, lighter, cheaper, and fit better in my hand than the Sony. Canon wins, right? Well, the one thing that bothered me was reading the reviews about the 'motor whine' during playback. I knew this is one thing that would really bother me. Well, since we are taking a trip to Mexico in a few weeks I had to make my choice. I went ahead and took my chances with the Canon. I went to [...] to select a highly rated(and cheap) online seller. I ended up buying from [...]and had the camcorder within a week. After a few weeks of use, I am extremly happy with my decision. It is very easy to use, and best of all, the motor whine is a non-issue. Yeah, it's there when watching recordings in quiet settings, but I don't really notice it. As a test, I never mentioned the noise to my wife prior to buying the camcorder. I wanted to see if she would notice it not having not previously known about it. Well, she's probably used it more than I have over the past couple weeks and hasn't mentioned a word about the motor noise. Maybe some units are worse than others, but I'm not sure I would even have noticed it either if I wouldn't have read the reviews talking about it. I'm definitely glad I made the purchase. One recommendation - buy an extra battery. The one that comes with the camcorder only lasts about 45 minutes using the LCD. I bought a Lenmar LIC-511 that gives you about 2 hours.
Rating:
Summary: BEWARE of ZR45MC Tape loading mechanism!!!!
Review: I bought the ZR45MC camcorder in Sept '02. I have been using it quite regularly. then all of a sudden I cannot load new or old mini DV cassettes. The moment I load a cassette, a message flashes on the screen 'REMOVE TAPE' and beeping sound is generated together with a flashing 'EJECT' message. Next step, I ship this to the Canon Factory service in NJ. They replied with an estimate of $160(on top of the $654 I pad for this!!).
Also most importantly when I shipped from the Fedex office in Boston, the Fedex person made a remark that she has been seeing quite a number of the Canon camcorders going to NJ for repairs.
To sum, I think this is a racket Canon has devised to rip off customers.
So beware when you buy a Canon camcorder, ask the retailer about the tape loading mechanism, and if they have any maintenance plans that will repair it.
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