Sony DCR-TRV340 Digital8 Camcorder

The Sony DCR-TRV340 is a top of the range Digital8 Camcorder. The Hi8format is a compact and high resolution analogue system and Digital8keeps the same tapes but makes the switch to a digital format. It has the great advantage of being able to play existing Hi8 tapes, thus making a sensible upgrade for analogue camcorder owners who want to switch to digital. Sony's TRV340 is compact and feature-rich camcorder which is cheaper than comparable MiniDV systems. The images produced are rich in colour, well defined and accurate. The main features are a decent 37 mm lens, an excellent stabilisation system and a powerful zoom, offering 25x optical backed by a huge digital zoom taking this to 700x. The digital zoom does degrade the image noticeably so you are best sticking to moderate use. The menu system on the LCD controls a whole host of functions. Some are genuinely useful, some are best avoided and others are just plain fun. The time-lapse photography is a hoot, as well as having some practical application and some of the digital filters are good fun too. You can apply many of the special effects after recording and experiment with them before editing down a tape to another deck or simply play about with them during playback. The Super NightShot mode uses infrared to shoot in complete darkness at up to 10 feet. The menu is a little fiddly and after a while you begin to wish there were even more buttons elsewhere to control things. The exposure mode does have it's own button which is a blessing as this is the one you'll need to access most. Despite all this there are automatic modes for everything, so you needn't touch any setting to get going. It's been designed for those who want to use their camcorders quickly and easily and not have to invest too much time and effort learning the technicalities of videoing, just achieve good results with the minimum of fuss. The camera can input and output video in analogue and has digital video out (referred to as iLink/Firewire and DV Out). It's surprising not to see DV-in on what is otherwise such a well specified camcorder. The edit functions include scene selection so you cut out what you don't want as you transfer a video. It can even act as a digital to analogue converter for your old analogue tapes. The main extra feature of the DCR-TRV340 over the lesser 238 and 240 is the addition of a Sony Memory Stick as an alternative recording media. An 8 MB Memory Stick is included. The resolution is 640 by 480 pixels for still images and 320 by 240 for MPEGvideo. One clever feature is the ability to mix video and digital images using chromakey, overlap and luminescence enabling all sorts of special effects possible as you shoot rather than applied at the editing stage. You can copy images from your Memory Stick to tape and vice versa. You can even connect a printer directly to the camera and print them out. Using the Memory Stick for stills is faster than using the tape and saves a lot of battery power. It's not easy to find a serious shortcoming in the TRV340, it does everything you could ask with style and manages to be good value while doing it. --Miles Berkeley

The DCR-TRV340 is a fully featured Digital8 camcorder. Its 1/6-inch 800,000 pixel CCD combined with a 25x optical and 700x digital zoom lens provide high picture quality. Super Steady Shot and Super Nightshot functions make shooting video in a broad range of environmental conditions easy. Its Sony Stamina rechargeable battery system can provide up to 10 hours of uninterrupted operation. The supplied NP-FM30 battery gives up to 100 minutes of continuous recording time. For the maximum battery life, Sony recommends using the NP-QM91 battery (not supplied) and keeping the LCD closed. i.Link (DV out) makes connection of the camcorder to a broad range of AV/IT devices a straightforward single cable operation. The camcorder's backwards compatibility with analogue Hi8 material enables users to insert archived material within the new digital video in a totally seamless fashion. Alongside tape, this camcorder harnesses the power and convenience of Sony's revolutionary IC recording media, Memory Stick. It supports MPEG eMovie capture and has function for taking digital stills.

Developed three years ago as a completely digital video format, the beauty of Digital8 lies in its bridging capabilities between the analogue world of Sony Hi8 and the digital multimedia future. Once again the bridging capabilities of Digital8 are emphasised with USB streaming capabilities presented as standard in the entire range. USB Streaming creates two new applications for these versatile digital camcorders: the first as a WebCam with the addition of USB driver software and third party conferencing software (such as Windows Netmeeting) to facilitate video communications live over the Internet. A second application is live video streaming direct to a PC in similar fashion to Sony's i.LINK, since the USB port transmits a continuous video signal rather than single files. This application requires Pixela Image Mixer software (which comes bundled with the camcorders) as well as the necessary USB driver software. Image Mixer captures the video data, edits MPEG1 format data, displays thumbnails of still and moving images on screen and archives them to hard disk or Memory Stick.