[sidefall]

It's time to ditch my ancient Hi8 camcorder (Sony TR3200 )and move to MiniDV.

I want to get a quality 3 CCD model.

Obvious choice would be a Sony HC1000, but this seems to have been slagged off rather a lot of reviewers, and the conclusion seems to be that it's a step down from the previous TRV950, or even the older TRV900.

So, I'm thinking of a Panasonic, probably a GS400, which costs more than the Sony.

Is this a wise move, or should I get either the HC1000 or a used TRV950/900?

Any ideas?

Dave

HC1000 is a solid cam at a good price, major quibble, as with the 950, is that it has no full manual mode, the closest you get is manual shutter with exposure + or -, with no info on apeture & gain.

Lens quality on HC1000 surpasses that of 900 and 950, but I have a long serving 900 which I wuld recommend to anybody, however to buy a 900 could mean buying a six year old cam...

Avoid the 950 like the plague, horrible cam with horrible streaky ccds.

Unless you are really technical I'd buy the HC1000, there is a work around for the exposure: click back 6 stops from maximum exposure setting, this gives you max aperture and 0db gain. Any more towards - and you are stopping down the lens, any towards + and you are adding gain.

You can test this by shooting a tape and changing the expsoure setting then playing back with cam data on the display.

I bang on about this but gain is a killer, its good to have it in reserve, but too many cams go to it automatically even at higher shutters and smaller apertures.

I shot some test footage on the very first PD150's when the bbc were looking at augmenting/replacing their fleet of vx1000's and was dismayed to find that the gain had to be locked at zero or it would kick in automatically.

I'm all for being able to add gain at any aperture, but I feel very strongly that the user should actually consiously make the decision, knowing of the consequences, unlike every other pro/semi pro cam i've used the pd150 had to be told not to add gain. Between that and the pish sound I never rated them as highly as the vx9000 or xl1, but the beeb was sold on the dvcam format.

Anyway i'm rabbiting on, a good2nd hand trv900 is the best of the three you mention, but i think i'd go for the hc1000 if it has to be a sony, the gs400 is a better beast if you are buying new.