Sony DCR-TRV330 Camcorder Review

The Sony DCR-TRV330 has a 25x optical, 700x digital zoom. Although the quality of the digital zoom is so bad, as it is with any other camcorder, that you should never use it. The camcorder has a 3.0 in. LCD screen and a black and white viewfinder. The camcorder's CCD is 1/6 in., which is a little small. The camcorder has a 460K pixel CCD and can shoot 500 lines of resolution.

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 transferring video to and from your camcorder (i.Link as Sony likes to call it) plus composite in and out.

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.

The Sony DCR-TRV330 has an included Memory Stick slot and a 4MB Memory Stick for saving digital stills. The resolution of the stills is 640 x 480 pixels. This is a good resolution for digital stills. You can save your pictures to the Memory Stick slot and delete those that you don't want. The camcorder includes an USB slot for transfering your stills from the camcorder to the 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.

I feel that the Sony DCR-TRV330 is the sweet spot in the Sony Digital8 line. The bottom two camcorders lack still capability which is very nice to have on your camcorder. Although the included still capability on the TRV330 isn't great, the stills are useable. If you're really looking for high resolution stills you should either get a dedicated still camera or go with a megapixel CCD camera. Although the camcorder lacks many manual features found in other manufacturers camcorders, the low price is a great and the camcorder is really a great bargain.