Still a great buy even after 2 years
Written: May 01 '02 (Updated May 25 '04)
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Pros: Reliable, good on battery, pictures, telescopic mic, touch-screen settings, IR, low light. Manual or automatic.
Cons: No plug for external mic. A bit long, but probably required for good quality lens
The Bottom Line: I wouldn't know what to replace it with. In order to keep all the features, I would have to buy the same one again.
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| chrisg10's Full Review: RCA CC9390 Mini DV Camcorder |
This camcorder has many features I like and can't find anywhere else. It's really loaded.
Solid feel to it.
What makes it easy to use is the touch-screen for the settings. Screen is detachable and can be used as a remote with a cable attached to camera. The screen is quite large.
1.3 Mega pixels for high quality picture with no distortion.
Pictures on tape or SD-card.
Good low light image.
Additional light and telescopic mic for better sound when zoom in.
Great settings such as wind filter (3 position).
Can be set all Manual (shutter speed, white balancing...), or 100% automatic.
Also a great feature is the ability to brighten the parts that are in the dark (3 settings).
I've had it for 2 years and I've only had to clean the tape heads once: a red indicator tells you it's needed. Tape cleaner really works.
I used it in freezing temperatures and humid weather. Make sure you read the documentation to prevent tape from sticking to head due to condensation going from freezing place to humid restaurant (fogged up my glasses!). Problem was solved with a tape cleaner. Used the camcorder on roller coaster, outside of car window, going down hill with a tube in the winter. I've been careful with it, but I haven't been limiting myself as to what I wanted to film.
Good on batteries. I recommend using a larger capacity than the one provided (double the size).
Also, it takes 128Mb SD cards.
The quality of the video doesn't compare to the VHS-C and the 8mm that I had before. It's just really good.
Also, the lens doesn't distort the image like I've seen on other digital cameras that cost more than 1/2 of this camcorder that does both digital images and movies!
Comes with a MMC or SD card reader so that you can just get the pictures easily.
Comes with a software for PC that allows you to edit your movies and made VCDs, or SVCDs. Through the firewire card, it works really well.
It has feature I don't even care for such as the ability to put 9 images in one image with a small delay between them just as if you wanted to see the swing of a gold player on one image. You can also garb pictures from the tape to the card... but I always use my SD card so I never put the pictures on tape.
Manual settings are great to get the best settings for some special events such as fireworks (get more colors in) or filming TV.
It has options such as solarization, making the picture white and blue, brown and white (old timer) and more.
I just would have liked to have an external plug for the mic so that I could do video transfer from the 8mm home movie and avoid recording the noise of the projector. That can still be done by putting the projector behind glass with the speaker close to the digital video camera.
I don't know why RCA threw the sponge so shortly after putting out this model. It's really a great model.
This model was not rated too well in PC magazine because they said that it did not have the ability to make pictures and it does, both on card and tape, so a big mistake from the magazine. It makes you wonder how much homework they do before they rate a product since this feature is hard to miss on this camera. Why else would you need a MMC/SD card slot in the camera for? Not to mention the settings on the camera itself, both with buttons and on the menu.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 750
Recommended for: Home and Families - Keep Memories of Family Vacations
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Epinions.com ID:
chrisg10
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Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
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