Hello! I hope to buy my first camcorder in the near future. I've been looking around alot and I think to buy the sony trv 16 E. Has anyone got any experience with it or can someone advise me something better around the same price? I need it mostly for family use. Canon I don't want becouse of the motor noise and I heard that the lens of sony is better than the panasonic or jvc one. Is that true?
Does anyone know of a shop where I can get a good deal for it? Thank you very much ! Ed

please!
I'd really like some advise before deceiding!
Thank you.

[Lex]

Hi,

I bought the Sony TRV18E last month and have been very pleased with it. (I payed £499 from Letsgodigital). It is small, compact and robust with all the features I needed (except DV-In).
I took it to Disneyland Paris last week and filmed about 7 hours of footage in freezing cold conditions and it performed perfectly.
The image quality is excellent, even in low light.
The still photo images are not as good as I hoped they would be, but then I didn't buy it for still photos, that was just a bonus feature.
The firewire and USB connections are easy to use.

All in all I was very impressed, esp for less than £500!!

I looked at all the cameras around this price (£300 - £600) and decided that this was the best value for money without compromising quality. I am very happy with it. Don't know what else to say really. I will answer any more questions about it if you have any...

hope this helps,

thanks for your help.
Is it worth paying extra for the 18 E ? I think that the only difference is the possibility to take pictures wich I heard that they anyway don't come out very clear. Is that true?
And one more question: It hasn't got a dv in. What is that for?
thank you!

[Lex]

Hi edsm,

sorry for the delayed reply.

If you look here there is only a £67 difference in price. Only you know whether you need or want the still pictures function - personally I would say it was worth the extra £67 as if you were to buy a digital still camera seperately it would cost you a lot more than that.
The picture quality is average, it is not crisp and clear, but it isn't terribly bad either - I wouldn't recommend it for printing out, but it is more than good enough for emailing etc.

The 18E also offers the ability to record a moving image in MPEG onto the memory stick - this means that you do not need to cpture the footage onto your pc, you just download it from your memory stick. However, you only get an 8mb memory stick with the camera which cannot fit a lot of footage onto it. You can buy up to 128mb memory sticks seperately.

DV-In means that you can record back onto your camera from your pc after you have edited your footage.

Hope this helps,

Thank you!
I think I'll go for the 18 ubless I find a special offer for the 16 with the upcomming sales.