Sony DCR TRV-260 Camcorder...

[David Schuttler]

Find an old 8mm for your night video and process it back thru the mini-dv to digitalize it.
At least this works for me. I use my 10yr old Canon es 8mm on the dash and for most night video. Afterwards I connect it to the digital cam and record it to digital.

 

[David Drummond]

I just found a few TRV-520's on ebay... mostly going for aprox $300.00 ... from what I read, it really seems like a good camcorder.... some of the feature are actually better than the 260 & 460 ..

David, is this the camcorder you are useing?? If so, do you have any vids from it on the net I can see??

What I had considered doing is getting the Digital8 first as a starter camcorder ... save my money .... get the, 2100 I think it is, and use the Digital8 for backup or a second cam for other shots ect....

Dave

Yes I use a TRV520. This is my second one. IMO it was the last of the really Digital8 camcorders before moving on to DV. My last one took a TON of abuse anywhere from sand, to constantly getting wet to that lightning strike back in April. It finally started giving me some errors during editing so I had to replace it. I bought one of the ones you mentioned about in an emergency in KS, but promptly returned it almost completely because of that bottom loading features. It also felt toyish compared to my 520. I picked up another barely used (seems brand new) 520 for a little over $300 on Ebay. It's certainly been a good enough camera for broadcast TV work, at least they haven't had any objections. It has an easy to use infinity focus (important!), has firewire (very important) and I use the higher end Sony 8mm tapes. You can also get a battery for these that last an entire chase. IMO if you are on a budget you can't go wrong with this camera! And yes, any video you have seen from me, online or not, came from a 520! There are a couple on the front page of my site right now. Keep in mind they are compressed a little. If you get really serious about getting one I could put up a short full digital video file. Too long of one would be huge by at least you could see the quality. http://wx5tvs.com

Graham and I were amazed by the low light shooting you could do with it. It does get grainy, but it sees in much darker light than his DV camera.

If you can't afford to go higher end and get a 900, VX1000, or VX2100 I firmly believe this is the way to go. I personally would never own anything but a sony when it comes to video cameras. They have always gone way beyond anything I asked of them.

 

[David Sallee]

Thanks David, I think I just might go with the 520 ... I have seen alot of your footage and even though it's compressed, it looks very good...

Thanks for the input everyone...
Dave

 

[KMcCallister]

I bought a similar model the Sony DCR-TRV350 last year before chase season. I went with this Digital 8 model because it would make it easier to transfer old 8mm content to digital. Also, it was priced low (about $400 if I recall correctly) which allowed me to replace my 4 year old Canon 8mm. (Before that I had a Minolta 8mm camcorder that didn't have an easy way to turn off the autofocus.)

This camcorder is very easy to use and transfer the video off the camcorder into the computer using either USB or IEEE1394 (aka Firewire or I-link). The factory battery life is far superior to any other camcorder I've owned. (Of course it is Li-ion compared to NiCds)

While I'm very pleased with the machine, I only have one complaint. The "digital picture" feature which takes a capture onto the MemoryStick sucks. The pictures aren't useful. It will also do a MPEG video recording onto the stick from either the live video (w/o tape or with tape) or from the tape. It's consistent with other .mpgs you might create. However, it's not nearly as good as you can make putting video on the computer and
use the software.

Another thing I'd remind any less experienced camcorder buyers is that you will never use digital zoom. When you are looking at specs, only look at the optical zoom. This is the actual magnification provided by the lenses of the camera. Digital zoom is just "blowing it up" which quickly degrades the quality. This Sony may have 700X digital zoom, but it hasn't been on since the 2nd day I owned the camcorder when I was still playing with it. Honestly, I don't know what use ANYBODY (chaser or not) would ever have with that crap. It's marketing BS.

I spent about $50 on that upgrade to get that "picture" feature and about $50 on the MemoryStick. That is $100 I would like to have back.

And to echo the other comments, there is no feature (outside of video quality) more important to camcorders and chasing than an autofocus that stays off when you turn the camera on and off. Or at least the autofocus is easy to turn off again. Chasing involves a lot of turning the camcorder on and off and rarely do you want it to be on autofocus. (Something I didn't consider when I bought that Minolta in 1996)

Overall....this Sony is a very good camcorder for its price. I intend to use it until at least next year when I hope to replace it with a 3 CCD camcorder.