This is by no means a complete fix for the poor low light performance of the ZR series- but many users here, including myself, have found the situation not to be as bad as some make it out to be. You can get good, usable video indoors with these cameras, and no one argues the superb well lit and outdoor performance. But what happens many times is someone buys the camera, out of the box the image is pretty bad, and they turn around and return it for a more expensive camera. If you can afford a better camera get it, but if you're willing to try a few setting changes before coughing up $200 more, you'll see these cameras can be quite good.

Tip 1) With any of these settings, try them out first, if you can, and see what works for you. Also, use the viewfinder to gage your lighting and brightness- it's more reliable than your LCD- on which the brightness is adjustable and can be misleading.

Tip 2) One sure way to decrease the noise in your picture is to decrease the AE exposure setting. You can adjust this to taste, but the most consistent input we have here is anywhere from
-0.5 to -1. The downside is the image gets darker as you go.

Tip 3) Shutter speed- set your camera in auto mode and change the shutter speed to 1/60. I personally feel like I get the most benefit from this setting. The image will be brighter and the grain is decreased. The downside is the image can be a bit blurry- esp with high motion, but not as blurry as the "Lowlight" mode where the shutter is around 1/30.

Tip 4) Some users have posted good results with the "Spotlight" setting, although this will darken the image dramatically. But if you've got a good source of light, for example someone sitting next to a lamp, and you're not as worried about the surroundings, this can be a good setting. Like the name suggests, this has been helpful for many users at a school play, recital, and has been recommened for fireworks displays, such as gonig to Disney.

Tip 5) White balance- at the very least set it to indoor. If you can, find a clean white area to set it manually. Maybe some high quality printer paper or even better run down to the photo store and get a card to set your white balance. Find an area of the room that seems to be most representative of the lighting and set the balance. this will help you in any video situation.

Misc) Before you totally write off these cameras, view the output in its final format you would be viewing it in. It appears that the analog output on some of these cameras may be a cheap output- some users have gotten better results using the S-Video output instead.

If you're uploading it to a PC- be careful when viewing video on your screen. For one, the DV is interlaced and your monitor is a progressive display- without getting too technical what this basically means is that you will see artifact on your PC screen that won't show up on a regular TV. Digital HDTV is another story I won't get into. Make sure you try exporting the video, to VCD, SVCD, or DVD and see what kind of quality you get on your TV when the edited video is played back- but of course this also depends on your disc making software.

Like I said earlier- everyone has a little different tweak that works best for them. For me, when indoors, I set the shutter to 1/60, the AE to -0.5, try to set the white balance manually, and by the time I upload to my PC and create a DVD I get very good, crisp looking video. I have been pleased with the results and you will find others on this board who are happy with their cams as well.

Am I leaving anything out?