Rating: 
Summary: Great DV Video, especially for DV editing
Review: A great amateur DV camera, downloads to your PC for video editing and compilation work great. Just make sure your PC is up to snuff in terms of processor, memory and hard drive space...video takes a LOT!
Rating: 
Summary: Starts good, then craps
Review: After a few months of light use, Optura Pi started recording (digital noise on audio and video) over tape during playback. Treasured moments partially ruined.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Near Professional Package
Review: After much research and demonstrations of all different types. The one Digital Camcorder that kept coming up as tops was the Optura Pi. Since owning it over the past 6 months, I have videoed everything from and outdoor baseball game at the new Pac Bell Stadium in San Francisco, to an indoor College Graduation at University of Arizona, to an indoor poorly lit party, to a Jujitsu black belt testing tournament, to you name it. This Digital Camcorder has performed not just well, but exceptionally in all conditions. It's color is true and sharp and it's images crisp. It is as close to professional as you can get. It's optical zoom is clean and beautiful and it's digital zoom is just ok(as are all others that I have tested). It is a very very good value for what you get...small size and big big picture.
Rating:
Summary: Your wife won't yell at you after she sees the results
Review: I bought this in July 2000 and have been using it since then to shoot random stuff, like vacations, skiing, babies etc. Whenever I show the results to anyone, esp stuff filmed in prgressive scan mode, they comment on the quality. Sound quality is excellent, battery life very good, color saturation great, and the ergonomics are perfect. Great stills that are as good as many stand-alone digital cameras. If you are a beginner this is a great product. If you have experience you will like it even more.
Rating:
Summary: Best Camcorder for your money!!!
Review: I did a lot of research on digital camcorders. Unfortunately...didn't help much with my search. So I would like to help the site by telling everyone that the Canon Optura Pi is the camcorder to get. It is very difficult to find a camcorder with all the features that you need withouth spending $+ for it... It has excellent broadcast quality video. A superb progressive scan mode that allows you to snap high quality stills while filming. Awesome low light shooting without the need of nightvision. And lots more!! There are very few camcorders that can compare to the Optura Pi, but none of those camcorders can compare to the price. The Sony PC-110 and the JVC GR-DVL 9800U are similar camcorders but costs a lot more. This is one of the most overlooked camcorders in the market. But if you don't want to spend a lot and want the best possible camcorder, the Optura PI would be my #1 choice.
Rating:
Summary: Glad I Got It
Review: I just purchased a Canon Optura Pi. I knew I had to get a one chip camera because of the cost of the 3 chippers. I read many reviews and finally decided on the Optura Pi. I did not compare it with a 3 chip camera because I knew that it can't compare. I immediately gave it the run through and checked out all the bells and whistles. I will never use some of the extras. My primary goal is to shoot video with it. The still photo aspect didn't interest me but in order to get optical image stabilization I paid the extra for the Optura Pi. And now down to the nitty gritty. The colors and the resolution are the two most important things to me. The camera was everything I had wanted. The color saturation was really good and there was very little bleeding. I have been using High 8 and the Canon camera was far superior. The still camera aspect of the camera was not very good but I guess it is adequate. I will shoot stills with my Canon A2E and scan them if I want a better picture than the optura can give. I love this little beauty and recommend it highly.
Rating: 
Summary: Hope its price can drop right now
Review: I like this model, pretty good as digi-cam. and I plan to get one from amazon....
Rating:
Summary: Excellent low light performance
Review: Just got this camera. I wanted something that wasn't going to require a lot of gear to take indoor shots of my soon to arrive son. Many camcorders have surprisingly poor performance without lots of light. This camera does quite nicely in a fairly dark environment. Toss in Optical Image Stabilization and you've got a fine piece of equipment. Other camera's may have more bells and whistles, but this one seems to be top flight recording video.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Quality, Costly Repair
Review: Just passed one year warrant period, the eye piece viewfinder didn't work anymore. It seems that the sensor for the foldable screen went bad. Sent back to California Canon service center, and was charged for [money]. The customer service agent was very arrogant about Canon quality, and showed no sign of concern for my problem. Recently half of screen became distorted during replay. Don't want to waste another [money], so tried lots of cleaning and changed the tape from TDK to Sony. The problem seems to be under control. If it goes bad again, I will trash this junk, and buy a Sony.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent DV camera for the money.
Review: My main draw to the Canon Optura Pi was the optical (rather than digital) image stabilization. Canon is the only camcorder manufacturer that offers this feature in this price range. The image quality is excellent, although the camera calibration can take some getting used to. Experiment with white balance settings, etc. until you find something that works well. The LCD screen is a little too bright, but otherwise looks good. This camera integrates flawlessly with my Macintosh G4 and iMac DV computers. My only complaint about this camera is that occasionally the picture can become blocky and behave erratically. However, I have discovered that this is a problem with ALL DV camercorders and is due to flaky DV cassettes. So, choose your tapes wisely! In every instance of picture glitches, the problem has corrected itself within a matter of minutes. As I said, this is probably the best camcorder you can get in without spending $2500 or more
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