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Sony DCR-TRV22
Reviewed by
Eamon Hickey
on 04/07/2003
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The good: Compact and lightweight; spot metering with selectable spot area; flexible low-light features.

The bad: Hard to see LCD in daylight; fairly narrow-angle lens; bottom-loading tapes; no wind filter.

The bottom line: It lacks some of the features of its competitors, but its night shooting elevates this model above the crowd.

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CNET editors' review

  • CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
    Detailed editors' rating
      Design : 8.0
      Features : 7.0
      Performance : 8.0
      Image quality : 7.0
      Overall score: 7.6 (3.5 stars)
  • Reviewed by:
    Eamon Hickey
  • Reviewed on: 04/07/2003
  • Updated on: 04/14/2003
  • Released on: 03/15/2003
Like a striped button-down oxford shirt, Sony's DCR-TRV22 MiniDV camcorder is basic, competent, and useful, with just a touch of pizzazz. More than 20 percent smaller and lighter than its predecessor, the DCR-TRV18, the Sony DCR-TRV22 combines a decent feature set with a 680,000-pixel CCD, a 10X Carl Zeiss zoom lens, and a Memory Stick slot for still photos and MPEG video. A touch-screen LCD with selectable spot metering and spot focusing adds the pizzazz. Though the DCR-TRV22 lacks some of the features of competing models, such as a microphone wind filter and a broader focal range, its night-shooting prowess elevates this model to a solid value for a capable, highly portable family and travel camcorder.

Another bottom-feeding cassette hatch hits the market.
On the surface, at least, the latest entry-level Sony MiniDV camcorder is a significant departure from its ancestors. Most significant, the Sony DCR-TRV22 tips the scales at only 1 pound, 5 ounces with battery and tape installed. That makes it one of the lightest MiniDV camcorders available. Though the two-tone, blue-silver-and-gray body is mostly plastic and boxy-looking, the camcorder doesn't feel flimsy. Its construction quality matches that of other good entry-level video cameras, and it should fit well in the average-sized hand. Unfortunately, as with many of the DCR-TRV22's competitors, tapes load from the bottom, so you can't change them while the camera is mounted on a tripod.

Most of the controls are in the same position as on preceding models; the zoom switch and still-photo button fall under your right index finger, and you control power and recording with dials and buttons under your left thumb. To attain the more pocketable size, Sony has introduced a pull-out, tilt-up viewfinder. And one of our favorite touches is the Sony DCR-TRV22's flip-open plastic lens cap that stays mounted to the lens; since the lens can't show a very wide angle of view, the cap doesn't interfere with the scene.

Though Sony has changed the basic design of its entry-level camcorders, the controls stay the same.
A very nice touch: You won't have to worry about losing this lens cap.
You control most of the Sony DCR-TRV22's functions using menus accessible through the touch-screen LCD. The menu logic is nothing special, but we found the touch screen quick and convenient to use. If you can point, you can master it, and pointing, we're proud to say, is one thing we can do. However, if you're trying to shoot discreetly in the dark--during a performance, for example--or simply want to conserve battery life, you don't have the option of using the viewfinder and buttons to adjust exposure or change most other settings.

The DCR-TRV22's built-in speaker is the only thing hidden behind the flip-out LCD.
The Sony DCR-TRV22's feature list is pretty typical for a family camcorder. The 680,000-pixel CCD has an effective video resolution of 340,000 pixels and can capture 640x480 stills to a Memory Stick. You can also capture MPEG-1 format video to the Memory Stick or send it to your computer's USB terminal for videoconferencing or storage on your hard drive.

The 10X zoom lens covers a focal-length range equivalent to 42mm to 420mm in 35mm still-camera terms. Wide-angle shots are therefore difficult, but the camera's lens has a 30mm thread to accept supplemental wide-angle and telephoto adapters. An accessory shoe accepts video lights, dedicated flashes, and external microphones.

You can focus the Sony DCR-TRV22's lens manually by using arrow icons on the touch-screen LCD, which is fairly quick and precise. There's also a clever, flexible spot-autofocus mode in which you touch the LCD to designate a precise AF target. You can select your AF spot from nearly the full area of the screen. It works without a hitch, but we found it more entertaining than useful.

In addition to standard autoexposure, the Sony DCR-TRV22 provides six scene-exposure modes, a backlight mode, and a 24-step exposure shift, as well as Color Slow Shutter and NightShot modes for taping in low light. Apparently eager to maximize the touch screen's feature yield, Sony also gave the DCR-TRV22 a Flexible Spot Meter mode that works much like the spot AF; you touch the LCD to designate a precise spot-metering area. It also works well, and we found it more useful than spot AF.

Sony endowed the DCR-TRV22 with a good set of effects and other useful consumer-oriented extras such as analog-to-digital conversion, interval and stop-motion recording, and exposure bracketing for still shots. Our biggest complaint: The camcorder lacks a wind screen on the built-in microphone, which could prove a significant drawback if you shoot outdoors a lot.

The standard InfoLithium battery lasts about an hour, which is typical for this class of camcorder.
We're pleased with the Sony DCR-TRV22's overall performance. The lens zooms smoothly, and it's fairly easy to control the speed. Sony's Super SteadyShot electronic image stabilization does an excellent job counteracting camera shake, even with the camera handheld and the lens zoomed to its maximum. Plus, the autofocus is unusually fast for an entry-level camcorder, and it works well in low light.

We're less pleased with the quality of the 2.5-inch LCD. It's sharp and always adequate for surfing the menus, but in bright light, it's hard to use for scene composition. For daylight shooting, you're better off with the eye-level viewfinder, which shows bland and inaccurate color but is reasonably sharp.

The Sony DCR-TRV22's built-in stereo microphone is highly sensitive and records clear audio, but we did notice slightly worse than average wind noise when we shot outdoor footage--we really missed a wind filter here. And the microphone picks up the constant hum of the tape mechanism, though the sound isn't as whiny as that of some other consumer camcorders.Overall, the Sony DCR-TRV22's video quality ranks slightly above average for the camera's price class. Our test video footage was relatively sharp and free of artifacts. Colors are fairly vibrant but not especially accurate, a common trait among consumer camcorders. And the camcorder delivers good exposures under a wide range of shooting conditions.


Video quality is about average for a consumer camcorder (image was shot using manual white balance).
Using the Sony DCR-TRV22's NightShot mode, we got flat and colorless but fairly sharp video in very low light, even without the NightShot Light. Super NightShot enables you to shoot in total darkness, but the footage comes out grainy and is blurred by slow shutter speeds. There's also a Color Slow Shutter mode that yields colorful footage in very dim conditions, but its very slow shutter speeds also cause severe motion blur if either the camera or the subject moves.


Still photos from the Sony DCR-TRV22 are typical of 640x480 shots from camcorders--barely adequate for use on the Web, even at small sizes (image was shot using Indoor white balance).

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