The Sony DCR-TRV900 was a DV tape

camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swa ...

released by

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

in 1998, with an MSRP of USD $2699. It was intended as a high-end consumer camera, more portable and less expensive than the top-of-the-line DCR-VX1000. In 2002, Sony replaced the TRV900 with the somewhat less well-received DCR-TRV950. The camcorder had three 1/4-inch CCDs, which provided an exceptionally high-quality video image for a handheld camcorder of the period. It also had a 3.5-inch LCD screen, a color viewfinder, a 12x

optical zoom A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed-focal-length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). A true zoom lens, also called a parfocal lens, is one th ...

, a 48x

digital zoom Digital zoom is a method of decreasing the precise angle of view of a digital photograph or video image. It is accomplished by cropping an image down to an area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and scaling the image up to the dimen ...

, and a

manual focus In the field of photography, a manual focus camera is one in which the user has to adjust the focus of the lens by hand. Before the advent of autofocus, all cameras had manually adjusted focusing; thus, the term is a retronym. The focus itself m ...

ring. The camcorder included a

FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

port for transferring video to a computer. At the time, Sony had a pattern of releasing "professional" upgraded versions of their most popular consumer cameras, with the same chassis shape but made from more durable materials and in a darker color. Extra features included XLR inputs and the ability to record in the higher-grade

DVCAM DV refers to a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, DV was strongly associated with the ...

format. The TRV900's pro equivalent was the DSR-PD100, released in 2000; the TRV950's was the DSR-PDX10.

Specs

{, class="wikitable" , - ! Max Shutter Speed ! Dimensions ! Pros ! Cons , - , 1/10,000 of a second , 3.75' x 4.13' x 7.63' , 3 CCDS, Full Manual Controls, Adjustable mic levels , No XLR inputs, some controls behind LCD

TRV900 vs. TRV950

There are several differences between the two. Chip Size The TRV900 has 1/4' chips and the TRV950 has 1/4.7. CCD Pixels The TRV950 has substantially smaller CCD

Pixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...

than the 900 with 380k pixels while the 950 has 690k. LCD Monitor Both have a 3.5" LCD Monitor. Zoom The only difference in zoom between the two is that the 900's

is 48x while the digital zoom for the TRV950 is 150x. Also the TRV950s zoom rocker is more sensitive. Low Light The TRV900 Low Light Rating is 4 lux while the TRV950 is 7 lux. Progressive Mode Although progressive mode on the TRV900 has a slow frame rate, the 950 has no explicit progressive mode. Running the "flash" digital effect at the lowest possible setting will simulate a progressive mode. Audio The TRV950 has a little more "hiss" than the TRV900. Also, the internal speaker of the TRV950 is smaller than the TRV900 and has less output. A/D conversion and pass-through The TRV950 has a fully functional analog to digital conversion and pass-through unlike the TRV900. The TRV900 will allow you to record from an analog source but will not directly convert the analog signal into DV when connected to a firewire port.

References

Using the Sony DCR-TRV900 Camcorder
(Full Review)

DCR-TRV900 DCR-TRV900