Sony DCRTRV460 Digital8 Handycam Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom

Purchased this camcorder about a week ago. Ease of operation and a great operators manual help sort out technical items. Picture quality utilizing only standard grade 8mm tape is excellent. I can only imagine the more expensive metal particle or metal evaporated tapes may have even higher quality pictures. Have not had time to check out the camera picture quality using the memory stick. I do not expect any disappointments. Sony make a terrific camcorder product. Consumers reports recommends this as one of their "Best Buys" for digital camcorders. Sony & Panasonic both continually excell in the catagory as "Models requiring the least amount of repairs" or "Most trouble-free manufacturers". The battery that comes with the unit gives approximately 67 minutes of recording time on a normal charge. A full charge will give approximately 74 minutes. Recommend purchasing the FM-50 battery for extended recording/playing time and for nothing else, simply to have a back-up. I own a DVD recorder that allows me to transfer audio & video from my camcorder to DVD's . The camcorder has an A/V output for the consumer interested in transfering their home movies/digital images to DVD's. It also features an S-Video output for capturing even higher quality video.

Some of the bad things:

The camcorder does not come with a portable/cordless charger. You have to plug the batteries into the camcorder and plug the adapter/charger into the camcorder to charge. Purchase an additional external charger for simplicity.

The camcorder does not come supplied with a memory stick. Consider purchasing at least 128 M. That way you can get approximately 80 minutes of recording time.

The battery supplied FM-30 (see above) is not adequate.

Some of the good things:

Quality product

Image & sound quality excellent

Auto focus & stabilization also excellent

Great zoom feature

All in all, a fantastic product with great performance and features at a very reasonable price. If you want to get into digital video recording for less that $ 500.00, try this one.

GAC

My old 8mm camcorder died around Thanksgiving leaving me with 15 years worth of home movies and no way to view them. The TRV460 was at a great price point and perfectly bridges the gulf between analog and digital. I wanted to transfer the keepers stuff to DVDs and edit the really good stuff in to movies. I'm far from done, but I've worked with this camcorder enough to pass on some tips.

CAMCORDER: Easy to use. Pictures are so much sharper than my analog camera (I know, no surprise here, but it had a wow factor for me). The camera is smaller than my old one, a little bigger than my two hands wrapped together. The touchscreen is easy to use plan on studying the manual though. It's all in there and it's easy to read, but you have to approach it like a text book. It powers up quickly. Two things to beware of -(1) the tape inserts through the bottom and this that if you use a screw tripod adapter you have to take it off the to insert a tape, (2) there are some features that only work on movies recorded to DV tape vs. recording straight to the memorystick for example when you record to the memory stick it only records in mono.

SOFTWARE: Other reviews are correct when they pan the software that comes with the camera. I bought Adobe Premiere Elements and it is great. I bought the adobe software from amazon they were offering a Photoshop Elements/Premiere Elements combo that I opted for after reading numerous reviews. I've used the full version of photoshop for years and the user interface of elements is dumbed-down but still has a familiar touch and enough features to do everything I want. Wait a minute this is a camcorder review, sorry for the tangent.

FIREWIRE/USB2.0: Elements will capture movies recorded to the memorystick via the USB2.0, but to do the same for movies recorded to tape you need a firewire cable. If your PC does not have a firewire port, you can just add a PCI firewire/usb2.0 card onto your motherboard (costs less than $20 for the card). I had bought the card at retail a year ago. But camcorders need a firewire cable with a 6 pin to 4 pin configuration. Found one on line recently (listing: 6ft IEEE 1394 FireWire Cable 6pin-4 DV ILINK IPOD SONY) for less than a buck. Once you plug the firewire cable into the TRV460, you control the camera from the computer through the premiere software no special settings or adjustments needed. By the way, you can do some camcorder to PC transfers using the USB2.0 cable and the Sony Picture Package software but "clunky" is too kind.

Along with the camcorder, there are some necessary accessories. I looked for low-cost options on all of these and was pretty successful. I'll pass them on here for what they're worth.

DIGITAL TAPES: Sony makes many different types of tapes that are good for recording digital. The Sony Digital8 Camcorder Tapes (at first I thought these were the only ones that would work) costs $20 a pair at retail. There are many other 8mm tapes that are compatible for less than half this cost (check out Sony's website for compatibility).

MEMORY STICK: Again I went online to find a good price on a memory stick. But the stick I bought was not compatible with this camcorder (listing: SanDisk 256MB Memory Stick PRO Duo Sony 256 MB DSC-T1 +). The camcorder would only intermittently recognize the stick (mostly it wouldn't). Searches on the web showed that many people had this problem. The kind customer service dept at SanDisk agreed to check it out and said they would probably replace it. They did and the newer version of the same memorystick works fine. While I was waiting I bought a Sony 256MB memory stick at a retail store and, of course, it works fine. I got a memory card reader to plug into my USB port (listing: USB MS/MEMORY STICK CARD READER) so I could transfer movies to the PC without involving the camcorder.

ANALOG TAPE TO MEMBORY STICK TRANSFER: One cool thing I learned about the camera is you can copy scenes from an analog tape to the memory stick all from within the camcorder. With the touch screen monitor, it is very easy to do. This is great if you want to compile selected scenes (from the huge pile of old 8mm tapes) without sitting at the computer. I did a lot of this analog tape-to-memorystick xfer (using just the camera) while sitting around the fire with my family it made me a little more sociable with the family than if I were staring at the computer.

BATTERY: Another reviewer posted some tips on non-Sony batteries. I took an even cheaper approach that worked great. On line I bought a charger (listing: CHARGER for SONY NP-F550 NP-FM50 NP-QM71 QM91 BATTERY) for less than a fiver and a high capacity battery (listing: SONY NP-QM71 NP-FM70 DCR-TRV950 2800mAh BATTERY NEW) for less than fifteen bucks.

So that's it. I feel like the only splurge was on the tape editing software. I could have stayed with the free Sony Picture Package but the Adobe is so much easier and does tons more. If you amortize it over the hours you spend on editing, the $100 bucks or so is not that much.

My PC is a off-brand clone with a AMD Athlon 2800+ CPU running at 2.07 MHz, wtih 512MB ram, running XP Home Edition SP2 and a ATI AIW 8500DV videocard. I like this camcorder a lot!

Buy Sony DCRTRV460 Digital8 Handycam Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom Now

Referred to by some salesmen as a "dinosaur" this 1.5-pound marvel is a great beginner's camcorder with an easy to read and follow owner's manual. With the unit's "Easy" button, everything becomes automatic and the first movies are really great. The 2.5-inch LCD touch screen contains all the menus for setting up the camera, instead of numerous mechanical buttons. The camera has 4 methods of video transfer: An A/V cable that will plug directly in to a VCR or the front panel of your TV for viewing directly from the camera, "S" video transfer, USB and Firewire. I highly recommend using a firewire port as the preferred method of video transfer into your PC as the USB transfer has too many frame dropouts, resulting in jerky video. The still picture resolution is around 1 mega pixel (MP) and is stored on a memory stick, so if you currently use a digital still camera at 2 MP or above, you might be a bit disappointed. The viewfinder has it's own focus adjustment which is really good if you wear glasses. Some hints-Don't bother to purchase a separate battery charger if you purchase a spare battery, the camera does a fine job of charging the battery and the charge indicator light goes out after a full charge. A 64MB memory stick will store 980 pictures at standard resolution and 390 at fine resolution so resist the temptation to go with a more expensive 128 MB or larger stick. One last note, Windows XP along with Windows Movie Maker V2.0 (which is free from Microsoft) has the capability to capture and edit the video from this camera.

Read Best Reviews of Sony DCRTRV460 Digital8 Handycam Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom Here

I primarily bought this Sony because it is backwards compatable with HI8 tapes, plus has the functionality to upload digital 8 to my computer.

I previously had a Sony analog HI8 camera purchased new 4 yrs ago that had problems from the get go. It had several warranty related issues relating to sound. The most recent problem (on/off switch related) would cost me about $200 to fix. This camera has seen low usage and has not been abused.

Nevertheless, I decided to stick with Sony on my upgrade to the TRV460. I purchased the unit 3 weeks ago and haven't taken any video yet. However, I can tell you that uploading my HI8 tapes to my PC based computer couldn't be easier. You will have to purchase a firewire cable, which Sony should have included instead of the USB, because otherwise quality in transfer suffers. I did not opt to use the Sony software that came with the unit (didn't even bother loading on my computer). They might make good electronics, but I'll stick with another leader on the software.

I have sever old BetaMax tapes which I first transfered to the camcorder using the Sony supplied cables. Then I used the firewire cable with Microsoft Movie Maker 2 (which is free) to upload them to my PC. What a flawless operation. I have read of many people having problems with this step. Being able to accomplish this and get into video editing will greatly improve your videos. I may migrate to Pinnacle Studio for more video software options, but for now as a beginner I should be able to get myself started.

In summary, I expect Sony's video capture quality to be excellent (see other reviews since I haven't taken video yet). I am very pleased with the video transfer process, which was a big factor in my purchase. I only hope I won't have repair troubles with this camcorder.

Want Sony DCRTRV460 Digital8 Handycam Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom Discount?

Here you have some options for the battery monopoly:

Power 2000 ACD701 1800mAh $34.99 Sony NP-FM50 $50.58

Power 2000 ACD702 3600mAh $59.99 Sony NP-QM71 2760mAh $69.94

Power 2000 ACD703 5400mAh $69.99 Sony NP-QM91 4140mAh $107.99

Power2000 Batteries have an awful white color but much cheaper.

The charger for these batteries is the POWER 2000 QP7400 AC / DC Turbo Charger for SONY Batteries for $29.99 comes with 100v-220V inputs and car adapter. The Sony equivalent is the Sony bctrm Compact Battery Charger for M for $46.95 without the 110v 220v input and car adapter.

I hope this will help to solve the battery problem. This will also work for TRV-328, 260, DVD101, 201 and PC-109, 330 among others.