Good solid unit - video quality isn't as great as I expected
934947
Performs well and is very flexible.  I would have expected the video quality to be a little greater considering the unit is a 5 Megapixel unit.
1570506
I bought this to replace a Canon HV30 that I felt was becoming dated.  The reviews were very good for this unit. I wanted higher quality HD video, better low light quality, and a higher zoom.  I don't use the 4K.  I expected to be impressed with the improvements.  I was not.  The zoom is certainly better, but the quality improvement, if any, is not anything to brag about.  I kept the HV30 for 5 years.  I'll probably replace this after 1 year.  I don't think I will try Sony again.  The steady cam feature is okay at close distances, but at great distances when the camera is fully zoomed, it really messes up any high action events.  When you try to follow a moving target, the steady cam becomes a pendulum and swings back and forth, moving your target from side to side in your video.  For extended distances, I turn the feature off.
2712125
Wy wife and I had been considering a Hi8 replacement since our daughter was born. Several factors guided our decision: digital format, ease of use, portability, and ease of image capture. I wanted to comment on some of the  stronger features of this model.
First of all, the video works pretty  well. I'm not super-impressed with the image stabilization, but the auto  focus and lighting are pretty "smart". The color LCD is good  inside, but I enjoyed the color viewfinder when filming outside.
The unit  also serves as a digital still camera. The built-in 2MB memory allows for  ~30 images to be stored at a time. I'm not sure how to capture at a size  other than 320x240 just yet, but they look sharp at that  resolution.
Unlike other models, the JVC also includes video capture  software straight out of the box. I was discouraged, however, that the  capture process relied on composite video and not IEEE 1394. Why offer the  port & software if you can't use them together?  I ended up purchasing  MGI VideoWave to use IEEE 1394.
I'm somewhat of a Sony devotee, but I  didn't find many models that had Memory Stick storage AND MiniDV format. If  you're looking for a good alternative to that brand, consider this JVC.
4363972
For archiving video onto disc, this unit has performed very well so far.  You do have to read the setup instructions carefully, but that's no problem.  Since the price of blank recordable DVDs have come down so low, I see no reason to record on VHS any longer.  But there are caveats.  You have to handle the recorded discs carefully.  It doesn't take many scratches to ruin a disc.  Don't expect the DVD to have better sound or video than the original that you are recording.  The editorial review is misleading in this regard.  But I'm happy with the sound and video quality.  As a playback unit, the 985 does very well, but rather than use this to watch commercial DVDs, I plan to just use it as a recorder to extend its lifetime.
4926717
Easy to set up and USB-powered, but image quality disappointing.
4471994
This Sanyo HDTV/DVD combo is mounted to the wall at a busy doctor's office. One of the partners is a friend and aware I write reviews. Last evening when I dropped by (again since I'm there almost every 2 weeks for a meeting) she went into the virtues and issues of this HDTV/DVD combo due to it's "personality". She reports so far the DVD player has not "eaten" a DVD, though she reports it does like to "tease" the disc, it will start to take the DVD in or eject, but then will feed it back n forth a few times before it decides to cooperate. She also reports when she goes to eject a DVD sometimes takes a few times before it will decide to cooperate with the button push (left side, under the DVD player).

Immediately what caught my attention was the fact mounted out of children's reach, we had full view of the wide BRIGHT SILVER section where the base would mount. Seriously?  On many HDTVs the mounting area is black so it isn't grabbing your attention when mounted high on the wall... RCA does this right, why not Sanyo?  Also the power cord is mounted low center, and somewhat sticking downward so again it catches the viewers attention.  Designers forget the oddest details, RCA also has this problem.

The image quality is Great!  The audio is seriously lacking. The office staff had it turned up when we arrived so they could hear it across the deep lobby into their office area (where they have full view at an angle.). The audio was a bit scratchy, not the quality I've come to expect.  It was much better turned down, but still somewhat "tinny" in the waiting area being unfortunate to have sat nearly directly under the unit, however this is where about 33% of their seating is located....  on the bright side the remote worked very well from across the lobby and inside the general office area - well over 30 feet away.

Having viewed this HDTV numerous times in recent years, all in all I give the video quality and general functionality as an HDTV  5 stars. It's a good machine with a few odd twists. The DVD player 4 stars and the audio 3 stars, so overall this HDTV is a 4 star unit.  I will update if or when the DVD player "eats" a disc or anything else happens worth noting.  The good note: it doesn't fail just outside the warranty period.
2583575
I have had this camera for about a month.  Overall, I like it a lot, especially the video functionality.  I am using the AVCHD codec and it works flawlessly.  Maybe that's because my Plasma TV is a recent model from Panasonic also, it support this format by default.  I just pop the card in the TV and it starts playing.  Neat!

Picture quality wise, they are nice when the light is good. In low light situation, I have to limit ISO to 200, otherwise, noises are everywhere.  The auto white balance is inaccurate under florescent, and I can't figure out how to set WB manually.  I have gone through the manual many times and followed the instructions, but it just doesn't seem to do anything.  Could anyone provide a step by step walk through of how to do this?

I wish camera makers would have put a cap on the megapixel to around 8 on the compacts.  Small sensor coupled with high resolution is a recipe for a lot of noise.  Pictures taken at broad daylight, even at ISO80, show film grain like noise.  This doesn't happen on my "vintage" 4MB Canon A80.  ISO 80 on this camera looks equivalent to ISO 400 on my DSLR (Canon Rebel XT).
219585
I love that the central console is separate from the two cameras making it discrete, but the video quality is poor. Ok if all you need is a record for legal/insurance purposes but you won't be able to distinguish license plates and thing like that
a youtube video of my review can be found here: https://youtu.be/GcpYq-ALAe0
1911940
after about 10-20 hours of playing with this device, i finally figured out how to get good (non drop frame) video captures at the highest video size.  sadly it doesn't do 16:9 but it's highest resolution can be scaled to 16:9 in after effects without, in my opinion, allot of noticeable distortion.  also at the highest resolution, you only get 15fps but i feel this gives a more "film like" quality(and can be easily up scaled to 30 fps).  i recommend the plugin "neatvideo" to be used to clean up the footage you get with this.  also in the software's "video capture pin" setting panel, i recommend turning down the "exposure" setting to about -4 or -5 and turning up the gain to compensate.  for whatever reason, this seems to have helped eliminate a drop-frame problem when the exposure is set higher.
2895837
I bought this Samsung HD-960 DVD player to go with a Samsung HL-S5687 Digital light projector TV expecting a moderate increase in picture quality. Boy was I pleasently surprised when almost all of the DVD's I have played so far look much better in 1080p.  From previous experience I knew the Farujda DCDI firmware to be a cut above.  These pictures are several cuts above what I expected.

The honest 1080P Blu-ray demos of the Samsung BP-1000 I have seen in the stores are better yet. But many extra features - extended cuts, deleted scenes, making of featurettes are missing from the first Blue-ray movies that the dealer had to offer.

Patience at start up is a key to quality success.  The two computers - The Samsung DLP TV and the Samsung DVD player - need to successfully talk to each other over the HDMI cable.  This usually happens by the second try.  I turn the TV on first. Then I turn the DVD player on.  If this produces noice bars, I turn off the DVD player, wait ten seconds, and turn it back on.

Running at 1080p seems to use up enough of the microprocessor ability so some of the TV screen expanding features are not available.  But the 1080p picture displays motion better, and I prefer this mode.
3832804
Still playing with the device but considering the pricepoint, I think I will be fairly satisfied with the device.

Pros :  The 3D quality is better then I thought it would be, it really does a decent job and with the mini HDMI connection, it's pretty quick to watch it on your 3DTV.  There isn't nearly the level of ghosting that I would have expected given it was a 250$ 3D recording device.  I went in thinking I wouldn't get that level of 3D.  Non 3D movies shot in HD end up looking very nice as well.  I've had a flip and two kodaks of this class type in the past and this was the best quality out of all of them.  Also, one thing most of the compact devices lack is any sort of light/flash, it's nice to have a little help in low light situations with the built in led light.  The menus are easy enuf to navigate thru and I love have seperate dedicated buttons for pics or video.  I like the integrated usb slide out dongle.  The unit itself seems to have a good quality build to it.

Cons :  No optical zoom in any mode, no zooming digital or optical in 3D mode.  The optical I get, I don't think anything in this class does but the 3d no digital zoom is dissapointing.  Also, it is supposed to have some image stabilization but I found this part of it to be poor too, videos in the upper hd modes can get very jittery.  In playback mode, there is no slideshow or auto play feature I can find which is a shame.  If you have a bunch of mini clips recorded and are trying to watch on the tv, you will have to get up and manually play each clip. Also, I wish, especially with this device having two lenses, there was some lens cover implementation.  The led light is not of the quality of lets say the iphone 4 one, it's nice to have but it does not make this a flash camera or flash video device.  As stated in the other review, the 3d screen is very, very poor, almost unusable in 3D mode.  The 3DS screens in video mode are just as bad though in my opinion.  Battery life does seem to be poor in 3D mode, average in non 3d use.  Quite a bit of my cons I can understand given the class of device it is, hence only the one star ding.  I just wanted to portray all the negatives I had come up against so far.

Not con nor pro :  Stills are average per class usual, software provided is average

I didn't test out the sharing options although it seems to have a wealth of them.  Also, in non U.S. territories, there is also a package sold with a panaramic 360 degree view add on device.  The manual talks about it.  As far as I can tell, this device is not sold seperately anywhere yet, and the combo package is not offered natively in the U.S.

End of the day, content and 3D integration is still pretty limited for 3DTV users and in that scenario, I reccomend it to 3DTV purchasers as another way to get some bang for their buck from their 3dTV purchase.  That said, would I buy this if I didn't have a 3dTV?  No way, the 3d screen is too poor for that to be the only method of your 3d watching of your content and sans the 3d, all the rest of the features are offered on their lesser costing versions of the bloggie.
3962184
This is a great unit for watching movies on your flatscreen TV. The quality of the video exceeded my expectations, however, it is not so good for text, and it is not HD. The only problem I had initially was that while I got a pretty good picture with the video connection, I could not get anything out of the S-VIDEO connection. I tried everything, and was about to give up, when I tried playing with the NTSC/PAL switches on the unit. With both switches down, as instructed for NTSC, It worked on Video, but not on S-VIDEO. With both switches up, it didn't work at all. But with switch 1 down and switch 2 up, It works on both the video and S-Video outputs. There is a slight improvement in picture quality using S-Video, so if you can use it, you should.  My unit is marked SABRENT on the box, so this might not apply to all variations of this unit. I subtracted 1 star for lousy instructions, but otherwise it is all great.
4933967
I bought this unit 3 days ago.  To be fair, it is a great unit for the money at $249.  I would let my teenage kids use this for their projects.  The quality of the video is comparable to standard digital tape camcorders.
Anyone craving for higher resolution camcorders should buy the HD ones.
This unit claims to capture videos in mpeg-2 format but the extension of the files are in .mod (instead of mpg) which is also used by JVC camcorders.
This presents a slight problem for some xp computers to recognize this file when playing. In order to play, you would need to physically change the extension .mod to .mpg.  Some editing softwares also won't recognize this file , like the Easy Media Creator Roxio until you change the extension.

In order to connect to the computer via the USB, you need to connect the ac adapter to the camcorder unit which is a big annoyance eventhough the battery is fully charged.  The camcorder cannot connect to the computer directly which is unlike most camcorders.

Not that great taking low lighting videos.  Everything else is fine.
1780060
Have been very pleased with this unit which I have owned for about a year. Records at 480 but gives an acceptable upconverted image on hdtv screens. Bought the unit as none recorded in hd at time of purchase and I was switching from VHS to DVD format.  Hard drive models were too expensive. Have been experiencing some erratic recording lately, but I think this is because I have worn out the re-recordable disc I have been using for daily recording. Will post another review if this is not the case.
728407
Bought this to upgrade from a "42 Samsung plasma 720p and I'm starting to think I should have done more research. While it's not a complete bust, I do find the list of standard features wanting.
The picture quality is great for me but there's still something off about the color. I'll have to play with the settings but colors don't seem as deep as my plasma. I knew there would be a difference that i would have to adjust to but I plan to put my plasma in the bedroom so I'm kinda curious which TV I'll gravitate to. Still not sure why plasma went "Dodo bird" on us but, oh well.
Of course, I'm aware I should compare anything to plasma as I always thought it gave a superior picture. But there are other areas on this TV that make seriously weigh returning it for another series Samsung. This is a low-end model but so was the PN42A450 it's replacing and here's where I feel the ball was dropped. The old: 3 HDMI ports, 2 sets of Component inputs, RCA Audio output, Headphone output with level controlled by TV, and easy-access side ports. It also had an S-Video input, Coaxial Audio output, and a VGA PC input with a 3.5 mm audio input (which are obsolete now but I did use the VGA quite a bit) The new: 2 HDMI ports, 1 Component, and a 3.5 mm Audio output not level controlled. Both have usb and toslink (optical audio). You never know what you'll miss til it's gone. Not exactly a deal breaker if you have a simple setup but I do miss the options.
The sound is typically what I expected but definitely worse than what it replaces. What really bugs me about flat panels is the absence of a simple set of speaker level outputs. Just build a TV with an onboard amplifier and you buy your own speakers. Even better, include a set of small bookshelf speakers with the TV. I'm a minimalist so being able to use one remote is a big deal. If I can't get a soundbar that powers on automatically and the volume can be controlled by the TV, I consider that a deal breaker. Fortunately, I have a Logitech Harmony remote for my surround setup (which I have to use a lot more with this TV). Out of the box, go into the settings and play with the equalizer. From the factory, it sounds like torture.
The remote is horrible. I expect to have some sort of intuitive feeling with the remote in my hand. I can pick ALL of my other remotes and, without looking, have a feeling of what button my thumb is on. All the buttons on this remote feel exactly the same. Again, my Harmony makes this a non-issue but I thought you should know. Look for a replacement ASAP.
3883527
The Sony Trv 900 is an excellent well made work horse but... in todays world (2015) it is past its prime as to what people expect for quality video.  I own 2 of these and have used them to do lots of video work.  The resolution is about 720 x 480 so while the old tvs were in the 350 lines resolution the new tvs are 720 p and 1080 p.  Well the 480 p (the second number) output of this unit means that a 45 degree angled cord or edge will have stepped blocks when looking at them instead of being a smooth angle when viewing it on a 720p or even worse on 1080p screen.  Most computer monitors are 1980 x 1080 so they are 1080p resolution.
My advice is get a better camcorder unless you just want something that is built well and lasts and will record whatever it's looking at and be viewable.  It has a sound in mini jack ,so I use it with lavaliers to get excellent quality sound recording and I edit the video formerly with an Apple using final cut, and now with a pc using corel video studio using a firewire transfer.
Most cell phones will take much better quality video than these old guys.
3070516
Needs a solid, stable mount or the video gets a bit "wavy"