Sony CCDTRV87 Hi8 Camcorder

Ok, I have owned this camcorder for about 3 weeks and it has performed very well so far. The quality of the picture is very good. The high quality of the night shot picture in total darkness was a big surprise. For 50 bucks the infared hookup to the tv or vcr was a good choice. I wish the LCD screen could be a bit bigger, 2.5 is a little small. 3 inch would have been better. A word of advice, If you get the camera from somewhere other than a Ciurcut City or Best Buy type store you can get a very good three year extended warranty for ALOT less than a big chain store. Don't kid yourself, these cameras will break and a one year standard warranty is not enuogh to cover your approx. $1000 investment.

The picture seemed pretty grainy when i first started using it. After fiddling with the exposure it got better. Otherwise I really dig it. Nightshot works really well. Menus are pretty usable too. Only other thing is the battery only lasts about an hour. The 16.5 hour battery they talk about is sold separately for over $100.

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I bought this a few months ago and found it very helpful when Iwent to Hawaii. The imiage stablization is a very nick feature tohave. I found that the night snot is the best feature i was able to zoom into the back of the cave and see all of the bats and stuff like that. I think the 2.5 in lcd you can live without because tou still can't have audio when you are record ing or doing playback, the good part is that it has outstanding A/V performace on your computer or tv. i think this is great for it's money. P.S. Digital i think is just a waste bucause when you are have the whole family over at your house they arent going to be looking at the texture of the concrete they are going to look at the nice smiles of the children's faces.

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Start with the amazing 2 and 1/2 inch LCD viewfinder,Nightshot, digital image stabilization, Hi8-XR the standard SONY fare (ALL excellent and proven). Add Super LaserLink Wireless Transmitter and you have a winner. Have you ever been frustrated by connecting proper video and audio cables from the back of your TV and VCR to your camcorder? Have you had to go back and switch cables when you connected audio to video and vice versa? No more frustrations with super laser link which provides cable free communication to your TV/VCR. You can record in widescreen, you can record in 0 lux lighting and playback in stereo. Your battery life is an amazing 16 hours!

The only reason for not buying this camera the rate at which SONY comes up with these great products, you will be drooling at a better model next year!

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I have used this camera for about 100 hours now. I have used and figured out 99% of the special features.

Pros: Many special effects such as: infrared, black and white, cartoon like effect, and a couple others. It also has 16:9 recording but distorts the picture when recording. It has an excellent playback speaker when watching videos you have already taken on the 2.5 " LCD screen. It also has about 5 digital effects such as slow shutter or flashing pictures. The photo option lets you create a slide show easily and allows you to use the fade features such as overlap really easily. The battery that came with the camera lasts me about 1.8 hours using the LCD screen and about 2 hours using the black and white viewfinder. This is a surprise, because I thought it would only last an hour with the LCD screen. This camera also lets you record TV just like a VCR which is a nice feature if you like to edit videos. I also like the feature that lets you put words on the screen as you record. The stereo sound recording on this camera is great. The LCD screen is also crystal clear and is easily big enough to see what your recording.

Cons: Grainy picture in low light condition. However, if you use the light on the camera, it drastically improves the grainy picture. The zoom gets really pixely at anything zoomed in more than about 180 times. The camera is larger and heavier than the new digital ones. The manual focus can also be tough to work but it isn't too bad.

This is an excellent camera. I would recommend it over the digital ones just because you get a lot more features for your money and the quality of the picture isn't all that different.