Sony DCR-TRV230 Camcorder Review

The camcorder has a single, 460K 1/4 CCD. The camcorder's rated horizontal resolution is 500 lines. The optical zoom is 20x while the digital zoom is a huge 700x. The camcorder has a 2.5 in. LCD and a black and white viewfinder. The camcorder also includes a remote and a 50 minute battery.

As for picture controls, the camcorder has a manual focus ring, plus a zoom rocker. The camcorder has a minimum shutter speed of 1/4000 and a maximum shutter speed of 1/4. The camcorder offers both pre-programmed auto exposure modes and manual exposure control. White balance is automatic and there is a variety of special effects also offered. The camcorder includes FireWire for transfering video to and from your camcorder (i.Link as Sony likes to call it) plus composite in and out.

With the Digital8 30's, Sony split up the lower end of the line, adding the DCR-TRV230 as a middle man between the DCR-TRV130 and DCR-TRV330 (previously the DCR-TRV120 and DCR-TRV320). This means that some features were removed from the DCR-130 that were previously on the DCR-TRV120. The DCR-TRV230 is more like the DCR-TRV120 than the DCR-TRV130 is. Unlike the DCR-TRV130, the DCR-TRV230 can play back old Hi8 and 8mm tapes.

Digital8 is a digital format that Sony invented for low end camcorders, in an effort to bring digital video to more people. Digital8 records the same signal as MiniDV tapes onto Hi8 and 8mm tapes. Because there is more information is the digital signal than was in the classical Hi8 and 8mm signals, the tapes are recorded onto at double speed.

One of the downsides of this model is the lack of manual control. The camcorder lacks control of manual white balance and manual shutter speed and manual gain. Sony intentionally leaves out control of manual features on these camcorders to persuade those who want to do more professional shooting with their camcorders to buy the more expensive models. In fact the camcorders have manual white balance, manual shutter speed and manual gain built into them (possibly because the software inside the camcorder is the same as that in higher models), but it they are disabled. It is possible to enable them however you can break the camcorder trying to.

The microphone is placed right below the camcorder lens which is good placement. Smaller camcorders place the microphone often on the top of the camcorder facing up to the sky, which results in poor pickup of the sound you want in front of the camcorder, and pickup of the sound you don't want behind the camcorder. The camcorder has two sound recording options. You can either record in 12-bit mode with two tracks of audio, or in 16-bit mode with one track of audio. The camcorder also has a 1/8 in. mini-plug microphone in jack and a similar headphone jack for monitoring audio during playback and recording.

For still capabilities the camcorder does not have any external media to save digital stills on to. Instead, there is a button which takes a freeze frame of the video and saves it to video. The stills are really poor quality and fuzzy and there is no reason you couldn't achieve the same effect by just taking stills from your video using your computer.

The camcorder has other extra features. You can wirelessly play your videos on your VCR from up to 26 feet away using Sony's Super Laser Link® Wireless Transmitter, however you need to buy a receiver and the camcorder has to be in the line of sight of the receiver. The camcorders is rated at 0 LUX, however this is only with the use of Sony's NightShot, low light recording system. NightShot records your video in a mono-color green tone. Although the footage is neat, it looks so odd you won't want to watch it.

The Sony DCR-TRV230 is aimed at entry level consumers. Although the camcorder is simple to use, it does not produce as quality of an image as similarly priced MiniDV camcorders. The DCR-TRV230 also lacks features which you can grow into, if you decide you want to do more advanced shooting. If you are an existing Hi8 or 8mm camcorder owner and you're looking for an inexpensive way to transition to digital video the camcorder is a good choice.