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Customers most agreed on the following attributes:
from Ketchikan AK on 2/23/2008
I use this to take great scenic pictures and the quality is amazing.
from saint-raphael france on 2/21/2008
Great quality.
from The hills of South Eastern Ohio on 1/21/2008
Small, can carry it without a lot of bulk and weight when packing way back in the woods. Quality per size ratio is great. I.S. really helps when you zoom in on distant wildlife.
My last video camera was one of the VHS models from the 80's ... big, heavy and cluncky! The quality of video from this camera blows me away ... sharp, beautiful color and tones.
I listed simple controls as a pro and complicated as a con ... If you don't know what you are doing (like me), the controls are very simple. If you try to get more technical without reading the HV20 controls get more complicated trying all the different features. Still, those features are what made me buy this camcorder. It'll be fun learning!
Five stars because it is that good! As usual, IS is great!
Don't care for the digital zoom. A little bit you lose some quality but anymore is just very poor video quality. I turned it off and doubt I'll use it again.
Pros: The mini DV cassette is a plus. Tape is one of the best archive mediums available. This camera contains a rich feature set. You can control shutter speed to 1/2000 or set aperature priority. If you're a tech weeny, you can go full auto. Say good bye to trailing blurs as you pan your camera. You can auto set white balance. You have the ability to manually adjust input sound volume. Threads for filters are on outside of lens housing. This enables ability to permanently attach a filter to the camera. Seems obvious? Check out what Nikon is doing on their CoolPix digital camera. This technology is the biggest jump since TV went from black and white to color. Although $[...] is not exactly cheap, I feel like this camera is a steal compared to what I paid for its predecessors such as a couple of Sony S-video feature poor $1,500 boondoggles.Cons:HD tapes cost about $20 a pop. Unless you own an HDEF optical recorder, you will be forced to temporarilly downgrade your output signal from 1080i to 480i standard. With time, when HDEF optical burners become cheap, you can reburn. CINE mode is puzzling. It appears that the only plus is shooting at 24 frames per second. Can't control shutter speed in this setting. This takes us back to potential for blurring as we pan. I had to buy an HDMI to DVI converter so I could feed the hdef signal into my PC flat panel monitor. I had to buy a 4 pin to 6 pin firewire cable to capture the signal on my pc harddrive.