dkozin's Full Review: Sony DCR-VX2000 Mini DV Camcorder
The Sony DCR-VX2000 MiniDV digital camcorder looks cool. Fortunately, it has features that justify its professional looks.
The camcorder uses three HAD CCDs with more than a megapixel resolution (3 x 380,000) and an optical image stabilizer.
Picture Quality
The picture quality produced by this model is excellent. With 530 lines of horizontal resolution, if you have to have the best picture quality, VX2000 is a good choice. 3-CCD design increases the resolution and detail level. The image is sharp and clear and contours of the objects are well-defined.
Photo Mode
The camcorder allows you to shoot at 640 x 480 resolution, which is adequate for emailing or posting on the web. You can also shoot in progressive mode, giving you stills of better quality. The 4Mb MemoryStick is included.
Professional Features
3 CCD
Cheaper camcorders use a single CCD for all three primary colors. Professional grade camcorders use 3CCD, one for each color (red, green, blue) to provide better color reproduction and resolution. The three-CCD design contribute to VX2000’s excellent resolution and color reproduction. The CCDs uses HAD design for less video noise.
Zoom
The VX2000 has 12x optical zoom, with a very steady low zoom speed, which allows you to zoom slowly (24 seconds) to give your shooting professional flavor. The digital zoom goes to 48x. Not much, but the picture quality does not degrade as it does with higher digital zoom levels.
Optical Image Stabilizer
The VX2000 uses more expensive type of image stabilizer – optical image stabilizer (Super SteadyShot). Unlike digital stabilizers, used in cheaper models, optical stabilization does not decrease the resolution of the picture. The optical stabilization system uses motion sensors and optical lenses.
Aspherical Lens
The camcorder uses a 58mm 7-element aspherical lens with no image distortion, associated with large spherical lenses. The 2-mode neutral density filter compensates for direct sunlight and other special lighting situations.
Manual Control
In addition to automatic modes , the VX2000 gives you a lot of options in terms of control: manual focus, exposure, white balance, programmed AE, AE shift, shutter speed, gain shift, audio level, and more.
Special Effects
The camcorder has 5 different A/V fader modes, 6 picture effects and 5 digital effects, 16:9 widescreen recording. You can combine two picture effects.
LCD
The camcorder features a 200K-pixel 2.5” precision color LCD in addition to a precision color viewfinder. The LCD is easy to view in sunlight.
Connections
You can transfer your material to your computer using a FireWire connection (i.Link, IEEE 1394) or a flash memory card (4Mb MemoryStick is supplied). You can also make perfect copies of your recordings on other digital equipment using IEEE1394 connection.
The camcorder also has Control-L (LANC) editing interface. And the camcorder has analog audio and video inputs, so you can transfer your old recordings into digital format on MiniDV. You can also use a analog-to-digital passthrough.
Remote Control
The remote control is included and is useful when viewing MiniDV tapes and controlling the camcorder remotely.
Battery
The standard InfoLithium battery is good for about 70 minutes of operation. You can get batteries of larger capacity if you need more time. You can see the remaining time on the screen, and it is accurate up to one minute.
Sound
There are two modes of operation: 16-bit and 12-bit. In 12-bit mode you can perform audio dubbing. You can add a track of music or narration without changes to the original soundtrack, which is left intact. The sound is stored in PCM digital stereo format.
Bottom Line
The VX2000 looks cool and costs north of 2 grand. But the picture quality and features justify the looks. Do they justify the price? It’s your call.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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