Eyes on Pan (PV910) Good or Bad?

[Cut ter]

Hi,

I whent to a store and took a look at the panasonic pv910 and shopped around and found it for as low as 699.99
Is this single CCD DV cam any good.
I read an article somewhere and they said that the picture quality is not good. It seemed ok to me, but in dark places it supodsly stinks. I tryied covering the lense w/hands as much as posible blocking the light and the picture did get very grainy.
I did like what I saw under bright light. I think was nicer than those HI-8 sony's hybrid DV. (Excluding sony's NightShot) feature.

I'm looking for a all around mini DV under 1000 (considering the Optura) from Canon.
I would really like a GL-1 but is out of my Budget @ moment.

Any thoughts on this redundant topic?.

[Aryko]

I'd consider the Sony TRV-9. It's a single-CCD variant of the TRV-900, and it has several advantages over other DV camcorders. For one thing it has AV inputs as well as outputs - so you can import your old video and convert it to DV.

I looked into the Optura, an interesting concept but I wouldn't buy it unless you get it as a good deal. Apparently its resolution is the worst of DV camcorders - 360 lines compared to around 500 for the top DV camcorders. My Hi-8 has a better resolution. I also played around with it in a camera store and the digital still mode, while interesting, wasn't practical - it takes a 6-second still so you can voice annotate, but I just wanted to keep shooting more stills. I was impatient.

The end of my research said that I was going to stay with my Hi-8, and if I upgrade, it'll probably be to another Hi-8 product, just because it costs so much for a DV editing solution and I think the benefits are marginal. That said, if I was going to get into DV for < $1000, it would probably be with the Sony TRV9.

- Aryko

[Brian Ellis]

Cut ter

Be careful: you are in the UK and camera specs there are different than in other countries (even European), especially Canada and the USA, and some models are just not interchangeable between countries. E.g., the Optura mentioned by Aryko is simply not sold in the UK, even under a different designation.

Suggest you go to the local newsstand and buy the latest issue of Camcorder User. They have a good Buyers' Guide and a summarised spec table of all the machines sold in the UK, to see exactly what each camera has or does not have.

Aryko: I think all cameras that do stills do it that way, don't they? It's not just for voice annotations, but simply so that you have time to hit the pause button on playback. I suppose you could theoretically have single frame stills (how many per tape?), but you would never find them again

BTW, I use a prehistoric mini-DV Panasonic and am happy with it, although it is a 3-CCD one.

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Brian (the terrible)

[Aryko]

Brian - I see your point, but I guess I was thinking from a DV editting solution. I'll be there's a way you could take hundreds of pictures, and then download them to computer, viewing them as thumbnails.

At six seconds of tape, that's around, what, 18 MB of space just for one lousy 720x480 picture? What a waste of space.

- Aryko

[DrMordrid]

I've got a PV-DV910 and it works good. You have to plug in a module and use the power pack to get composite/S-Video out, but that's not a big inconvenience.

As far as other cams go one friend of mine bought a Canon Elura and loves it. They are right at the $1000 mark in my area (Michigan, USA)

Dr. Mordrid

[Cut ter]

Thanks for your input,
I'm in the U.S. not in Europe.
I read that the PV910 only has 320 or somewhat of lines of res.

Not too high
The sony trv310 is nice picture quality is amazing Plus it has analog video in/out.500 line of res.
Great zoom as well and fits good.
The newer 1CCD sony's are attractive like the trv800, 900 I believe very compact and good quality @ around 1500 - 1600 $.
Too pricey for me...
I am interested primarily in DV editing primarily. The Digital 8 i've seen appear as to have a great picture quality. Iwould love to know if they record as well.

[Aryko]

A buddy of mine has the TRV310 (D8). He said for three hundred more he could have the 510, but didn't bother because the only difference was an extra half-inch large LCD screen, and a colour viewfinder instead of b&w. He asked the salesguy how many people really spend the extra $300 for the extras... the guy replied everybody. If you think about it, he's probably right.

Anyway, it's a damned fine camera. The resolution's great. Of course, you record in DV on Hi-8 tape, so you get an hour and a half max recording time (or maybe just an hour). Again, all the inputs and outputs.

- Aryko

[Patrick]

You might find this thread of some interest -

http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002814.html

I had a few things to say about the DV910.

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry, Cut ter, I looked in your profile and found you were in simply Devon. When I saw that, I assumed you were, in fact, in Devon and not in some other Devon (how many Devons are there in N. America?)

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Brian (the terrible)