Sony DCRTRV720 Digital Camcorder

I am working with one of these 720's every day since 2.5 years and I think based on my experience that the 720 is one of the most beautiful and versatile camcorders ever built by Sony

I actually borrowed a DCR-TRV720 from a friend to shoot my kid's school play. Then purchased a DCR-TRV330 which is smaller with a smaller LCD. The DCR-TRV720 was so much better I took the 330 back and purchased the older 720 model! The large LCD is great and I find the color viewfinder helpful.

The DCR-TRV720 has excellent video in good light. At low light levels it gets a bit noisy. The super low-light mode (NightShot) is amazing. You actually can video in NO LIGHT! It is a bit green (due to the infra-red) but compare that to getting no image at all.

When coupled with Adobe Premier and a firewire enabled computer you can produce near broadcast quality video.

The still image mode is too low resolution for anything other than quick snapshots for the web (640x480). But hey, its a digital video camera! Ideal for using with your computer to edit your video with no loss. The memory stick also allows for some special overlay effects I've yet to play with.

Overall I am very pleased. I found the image quality better than any other DV camera in it's price range. Battery life is GREAT! But you'll want to buy a second high-capacity battery...

Great camera, video recording is phenomanal and the 450x zoom is a fun feature not to mention all the cool filter options for recording and editing (solarized, B&W, etc.)... One thing though - it only records photo images resolution with 0.3 megapixels (640 x 480) that's a snapshot and can not really be manipulated on a computer(enlarged) with out revieling excessive pixelation. I reccommend 2.0 megapixel (1600 x 1200) at a minimum, it offers much more room for enlargement and manipulation of the photograph.

This is truly a great camera, I've had it for a few weeks now and always find a new way to use it even better than before! I've checked to see(on the web)if the camera may have problems that other people have encountered and am happy to see none listed, did not buy extended warrentee. The TRV730 has a better memory stick resolution, but at the expense of the LCD screen (2 1/2) and has a Black and white view finder.

This is a great camcorder. I had a Sony Hi-8 camcorder which stopped working and the nice thing about these Digital 8's from Sony is that there is backward compatibility on the old formats.

Lot's of excellent features, but you pay for it in weight and battery use. The 4" screen is excellent, and if you have kids, its nice to show them (with sound) what you just captured. The color viewfinder also works great if you are used to using that (as I am from my old HI-8 camcorder). It also saves on battery usage if you use that instead of the 4" screen.

From a battery standpoint, you really need the 8hour or more batteries that are sold seperately, or you will be recharging all the time. The 8hr Sony battery lasts about 5 hours on this camcorder. I highly recommend you buy Sony batteries as they have a chip on the battery which lets the Camcorder read how much power is left. That feature is great.

I wish that Amazon had better rates on this camcorder though. I bought it at another site on the web for about ... (yes new). They also had it in stock, whereas Amazon seems to have problems keeping some of the different camcorders in stock...