Finally, Long Battery Life
Written: Dec 27 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Battery Life, Battery Maintainence, LCD screen, Image Stabilization, Mechancial Zoom
Cons: none
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| kpeinthoven's Full Review: Sony Handycam CCD-TRV67 Hi-8 Analog Camcorder |
I purchased a Sony CCD-TRV67 Camcorder in June 2000 to replace a lackluster Sharp Camcorder. The single most important factor in my camcorder choice was battery life. My Sharp Camcorder (and most other brands owned by friends) suffered from very short battery life. I purchased the Sony model because a friends recommendation and because of the availability of batteries for up to 15 hours of recording.
It is not that I needed 15 hours, but when you use the camcorder in any realistic way (zooming in and out, starting and stopping frequently, using the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder) I find that I get about one fourth of the rated battery life. For example my Sharp had a rated battery life of 45 minutes, I would get 11 minutes. With the Sony I purchased an 8 hour battery, and on a one week vacation was able to fill a two hour tape without recharging the battery! Even better it gives you an estimate of battery life to the minute (which counts down faster than realtime when you start zooming and using the LCD panel). This is a whole world better than the traditional three of four segment display for battery life. Even better yet is that the batteries are Lithium-Ion batteries, so you don't have to drain them before recharging, or recharge them completely (even NiMh batteries must be 'cycled' some of the time).
The great part is that everything else on the camcorder is also great. It has a flip out screen (only 2.5"). If you rotate the screen around, the person being recorded can see themselves. It has a good mechanical zoom range (20x) which is much more important than the digital zoom. The digital zoom is nice but is useless beyond 50x or such (the Sony has a nice option to stop the digital zoom at 60x for this reason). It has a night mode to record video in the dark (image is black and green instead of color). It has a built in light (a real good battery killer). There are also lots of other (useless) features such as a title bar editor, a various ways to fade the picture in and out, or add special effects. I doubt that I will ever use any of these.
The only single annoyance I have has is that it has a focus switch which has twice changed from auto to manual focus (probably when putting the camcorde into the bag). A little tape will prevent this from happening ever again.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kpeinthoven
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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