Sony DCR-TRV50 Camcorder Review

The Sony DCR-TRV50 has a 1/4 in. 1.5 Mega Pixel HAD™ CCD. The effective video pixels used is 970K while the still is 1,390K, but more about the still performance later. The DCR-TRV50 has a 10x optical, 120x digital zoom while the horizontal resolution is rated at 530 lines, the top for the MiniDV format.

An upgrade of the DCR-TRV50 over the DCR-TRV30 is the addition of a touch panel LCD screen. The LCD is 3.5 in. and 246K pixels. The camcorder also has a color viewfinder. When you first hear of the touch screen feature you’re likely to think it’s frivolous, but it’s actually quite useful. Using the touch screen LCD you can adjust the focus and the exposure. If you have an area that is under or over exposed or an area that you want to put in focus all you have to do is touch on it an the camcorder adjusts automatically. This is a great intermediate between automatic and manual control. It gives the inexperienced user a way of tackling the camcorder controls which can be very daunting. Sharp was the first company to add a touch screen LCD but I think Sony has really taken this option and flown with it. It’s a really great feature, especially for those less experienced camcorder users.

The best utilization of the touch screen are the Spot functions. When you press the FN icon on the LCD screen a menu screen pops-up with a page one and page two tab on the top four buttons on the bottom. The first button is the Spot Focus button. When you press the button a box, appears on the screen. You can touch any where on the screen, or rather on any object, and the DCR-TRV50 will quickly switch focus to that object. This is a really great feature and a very creative innovation. It's a great way to escape those funky automatic focus blues with out trying to master the focus ring.

The DCR-TRV50 includes wireless Bluetooth connectivity, just like the MicroMV DCR-IP7. In fact, the DCR-TRV50 has the same Bluetooth functions as the DCR-IP7BT and the DCR-PC120BT. Bluetooth allows the camcorder to wirelessly connect to another Bluetooth enabled device within 30 feet. Specifically, Bluetooth is used in the DCR-TRV50 to connect either to Bluetooth enabled cell phones or to a normal, land line telephone using the optional Bluetooth adapter. The established connection allows you to use your camcorder for communication. However, unlike the Sony camcorders with BT in the name, the DCR-TRV50 does not include an adapter for phone lines. You have to buy that for extra or connect to a cell phone.

The camcorder includes three "network features". The first is email. You can send a receive emails with both MPEG video attachments (from the Memory Stick) or still image attachments. Using Sony’s online Imagestation web site, you can upload your images to your own personal album web site hosted by Sony. The camcorder can also surf the web, by viewing web pages designed for personal digital assistants and web enabled cell phones. You can connect to the web by either using Sony’s service or your own ISP. These communication features are hard to use and seem somewhat impractical. It might be nice for some users to be able to email your images to friends, however it is very hard to compose emails with the camcorder.

In addition to digital stills, you can record pretty poor quality, 160 x 112 resolution MPEG video to the Memory Stick or you can store 320 x 240 resolution MPEG video. Sony makes up to 256 MB memory sticks currently so you could save in my estimation up to 32 minutes of 160 x 112 resolution or 8 minutes of 320 x 240 resolution MPEG video on one stick using Sony’s new MPEG MovieX feature which allows you to record video to fill up the Memory Stick, instead of being limited as you were with previous camcorders. You can transfer the movies and the stills to your computer using a supplied USB cable, but it does not allow you to transfer full resolution quality video from your tape to your computer (you have to use Firewire for that).

The DCR-TRV50 adds USB streaming, which has also been added to many other Sony digital camcorders. This feature allows the user to hook the camcorder up to their camcorder and stream 320 x 240 video, effectively using the camcorder as a web cam. This feature can be used to shoot video for emails, for the web, or for videoconferencing.

The DCR-TRV50 has composite video in and outs as well as S-Video. The camcorder also has Firewire for digitally transferring your video from your camcorder to your computer. The TRV50 also includes Analog-to-Digital Conversion with Pass-Through which allows you to convert your analog video to digital video on the fly.

The DCR-TRV50 has the best resolution stills of any camcorder available so far, so if stills are what you're looking for, it's a great choice. The camcorder handles pretty well and shoots great video but it has a lot of extraneous features. I do like the addition of the touch screen but I'm not to sure about the Bluetooth. In general it's a good buy. If you want serious still performance with great video, this is a great choice. But if quality video is really your concern I would urge making the jump to a 3 CCD model.