Sony CCD-TRV138 Hi8 Handycam Camcorder w/ 20x Optical Zoom

I bought this camcorder 4 months after the sound on my other one stopped working and I was impressed. The optical zoom is good at 20x and the digital zoom (which is completely pointless) is 990x. The second thing I noticed is that the LCD screen moved to more places and that there was 2 record buttons. One was on the LCD screen, the other was next to the off button. The viewfinder can also move to different places but is still in Black and white. Another feature that this camcorder has is Nightshot Plus. This feature allows you to record at night with a brighter picture than with a flashlight or lamp. There are also many DSEs or Digital Special Effects that you can play with in recording or editing. They are:

Sepia: adds a brown old tone to the screen

Black and White: the way films used to be

Negative Art: reverses the colors in the picture

Pastel: makes the picture look colored in with a pastel crayon

Solarize: makes the picture out of basic colors

Mosaic: the picture made out of squares

Slim: stretches the picture vertically

Stretch: a lot like widescreen

When filming out or indoors there are different Program AEs you can use when the light in the picture changes. If you dont like switching them, you can set them to AUTO. The PAEs are:

Sports

Spotlight

Portrait

Beach/Ski

SunsetMoon

Landscape

If you want to buy this camcorder because it has great battery life, don't. It doesn't have a great battery life but it is still a great camcorder.

I bought this to play back old Hi8 tapes so I could transfer them to DVD. However, there is no S-Video out and no stereo out. Video quality was bad: output was noisey and reds were over saturated. I imagine this is because there is no S-Video out. I returned it and have ordered a Sony GV-D200. Hopefully it will give me better quality since it was more than twice as much. There are some cheaper used options available, e.g. Sony EVO-250.

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This is your basic video camera. I'd say it's good for those who just need a video camera for occassional video recording. It has the basic features, with NightShot as an additional bonus. The picture quality isn't as great as I thought it would be (it's a bit grainy on my 36" WEGA), it doesn't record in stereo, and I wish it could hook up on my computer, but there's no USB port. I guess for the price you pay, it's expected. I'd recommend it if you're not really looking for something too hi-tech. I wish I could've gone with something better, maybe the next model up, but hey, it gets the job done.

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Like other reviewers, I bought this SONY after my old machine refused to play back my antique but loved tapes. I was shocked at all the DVD complaints I read here.

Although I like to edit tapes on my computer, its a job or two sometimes. I burn DVD easily in real time with a free-standing Sansung DVD burner that cost me 100 dollars. Its got a list of about 125 or so. At the time I bought it at Fry's, and loved it so much I got another a few weeks later. ALl you do next is get Audio and video out from the itty bitty combo plug, and then use the round rca plugs to go to the burner. Yes, a totally free standing burner. Plug it in, and go to the bathroom or what-ever. Automatic performance once started!!!! Now I also use this burner to record TV shows and such. Its like a VCR for DVD media.

I use this for several formats of video. Now I am sure there is a loss of quality, but it does an excellent job of video transfer. FAR superior to recording to VHS tape.

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I purchased this camcorder knowing it was not digital "state of the Art". I have a Sony Hi8 camcorder vintage 1993 which no longer functions reliably in the playback mode, and I saw the TRV 138 as means to play my existing tapes and transfer them to DVD's. I found the TRV 138 to be half the size of my old unit and the batteries seem to last 3 times as long. Thus it functions well and is much handier to use. It has the fold out color viewer, my old one did not, plus some additional features such as a variety of fade modes. The only negative is my old unit recorded sound in stereo, the TRV 138 does monaural. This is not really a factor in my recording needs. I have recorded music performances and found the sound to be satisfactory