OT: Best Sony D8 camera?

dmcmeans wrote on 8/21/2003, 10:05 AM

A friend recently had his Sony D8 camera stolen from his luggage on a trip to Australia, and he's looking to replace it. It was a couple years old, so I'm sure there are better models out now. He has a lot of 8mm tapes so he wants to stay with D8.

Anyone have any thoughts on what he should consider?

Incidentally, when he discovered that the camera was gone, the he was told that he would not be reimbursed since he had flown on more than one airline for his entire trip, they couldn't know when it was stolen and thus which airline was responsible. Good reason to always take your camera as a carry-on.

David



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Comments

donp wrote on 8/21/2003, 11:10 AM
When I bought my Sony TRV-350 last June only the TRV-340 and 350 were for sale in my area here in the US. Don't know where you are. I understand that Panasonic has some D8 also.
alfredsvideo wrote on 8/21/2003, 5:39 PM
I bought a Sony DCR TRV355E from RetraVision for $799 Australian. They also are giving a free camera bag as of writing. This model is the cheapest D8 camera I know of that converts analogue to digital, enabling 8mm tapes to enter your computer via firewire. I was going to get an ADVC100 to do the same job, but for a $100 extra I now have a spare camera.
randy-stewart wrote on 8/21/2003, 8:01 PM
I own a Sony TRV-120 which has pass-though and does everything I need. Got it new on line for $420 US. If I had to buy another D8 camera, I'd stick with this one even through there are other newer models. It's solid. The new ones have more bells and whistles but all are still 450-500 lines of resolution and use the same digital format. Some don't have digital pass-though so be careful. Having said that, if I had to replace my camera, I'd go the extra bucks and get a 3 CCD camera. For now, I can only dream.
Aloha,
Randy
farss wrote on 8/21/2003, 8:44 PM
That's a very good price, I'm also looking to buy the ADVC100 simply because the camera doesn't handle NTSC passthrough. If you don't need that though the camera is the way to go.
Stiffler wrote on 8/22/2003, 1:40 AM
I agree with Randy. Make sure you get one with the pass-through conversion, that way you won't need a separate unit (Canopus) for this.