Review of Sony DCR-VX2000 Camcorder

Sony DCR-VX2000 at Abt Electronics.

The design of VX2000 is similar to VX1000. However, the new model is more sleek and balanced. Magnesium case and metal joints give it a solid feel.
NP-F750 or NP-F960 (up to nine hours recording time) batteries are really heavy and for extended recording sessions the tripod is necessary.

200,000 pixel 2.5-inch LCD screen is one of the sharpest screens to date.

All mechanical operations are improved over all other Sony models. The menu, manual mode settings, white balance, shutter speed, and audio controls are mounted on the back of the camera.

58mm aspherical glass lens offers an adequate optical zoom range of 12x (f6 - 72mm) which converts to 43mm - 520mm on a 35mm SLR lens.
The lens is extremely sharp and gives a nice flat edge to the image.

The focus remained pin sharp right through the zoom range. Auto focus on the VX2000 is very fast, locking-on without difficulty even in low light situations.

Adding to the optics and exposure offerings on the VX2000 is a two-stage neutral density filter. ND filters are used to compensate where contrast levels may be high such as in bright artificial lighting situations or in direct sunlight. To set exposure accurately there are two zebra pattern overlays – 100% and 70% – which help balance even the most difficult lit scenes.

The VX2000 uses a new, 1/3-inch three-chip CCD imaging system that records up to 530 lines of horizontal resolution and delivers outstanding digital video quality.

New HAD CCD imagers have 450,000 pixels each (around 420,000 pixels are effective) and have been optimised for digital video recording. The Super HAD progressive scan CCD technology used in the VX2000 offers an excellent signal-to-noise ratio that is double that of the VX1000.

The new, on-camera microphone is two capsule, instead of the VX1000's four. The 2000 will now do 16-bit or 12-bit audio on two tracks and leave you two free for audio dubbing. But frankly both old and new mics are not of very high quality.

The VX2000 has a built-in Memory Stick slot. The camcorder captures stills onto tape or the Memory Stick at a resolution of 640 x 480 (VGA). The VX2000 does shoot in Progressive Scan mode which allows you to pull individual frames of non-interlaced still images from the captured video.

The camera will convert analog video and audio to DV output through its IEEE1394 jack while shooting (you don't have to record it first or put the camera into record).

The VX2000 also comes with a memory stick reader with a USB jack used to download images onto a computer. It can also upload images onto the memory stick media.

Conclusion

Sony has delivered the best camcorder for intermediate videomaker who is ready to do editing and make small movies.

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