I have this camera and I am very happy with it. Excellent video quality and good sound as well. For my purposes (general usage, weddings and school plays etc..) the onboard mike is sufficient. My understanding is that for high quality sound, then an XLR adapter is needed. There is apparently a problem with the on board manual sound adjustment. I simply leave it on auto and it works very well.

The only downside is that my wife is embarassed when I use it in public. She says its too big. I have considered getting the 950 but I think that the picture and sound on the 2000 is better. Last month I produced my daughter's school play using a both a 2000 and 950 and had to use a lot of color correction as to my surprise they did not match! (first experience of multicam shooting and editing). Must say Vegas + DVD was great to producing the final DVD.

Thanks for your input guys, I will check out the site you mentioned.

I have the cam as well. For school plays it does an excellent job because it works very well in low light without much video noise. I use the indoor white balance preset and the CP manual presets with slight shifts in the color and sharpness settings. Manual focus set "in the ball park" will avoid sudden autofocus problems and manual exposure is a must as is an external monitor on the shoot.
The audio of the onboard mike is OK, but the problem is that the noise floor is quite low. Any mike located at or near the camera will cause the same problem which is that the automatic gain will raise the audio level whenever someone nearby talks, gets a phone call on their cellphone, or coughs. A baby crying nearby will destroy the audio. Set on manual you have to keep it well below 1/2 to avoid the introduction of noise. On the plus side, if you don't have noise around you, the resulting video will have better audio than the audience heard live. Most high school plays have loud music and muted voices or howling body mikes. They often let arrogant kids run the sound boards who know next to nothing and are proud of it.
That leaves out tapping into the house sound (you'll regret it).
The best thing is to run your own remote mikes from stage area to either your camera via a small mixer or to a minidisk recorder or dat which you would have to synch in post (a pain...especially if you are editing the best of several night's worth of performances). In the case of the mikes near the stage, even cheap mikes will sound better because proximity of a mike is worth ten times more than quality.

One more thing. Check resellerratings.com before you buy from one of the sleazoids which are turned up on a daily basis by low price search engines. If you are unsure after checking resellerratings, then post the name of the place on several forums. A general rule of thumb (although places like B&H are an exception)is that if the vendor is located in or around NYC be suspicious of their integrity. Draw your own conclusions from the horror stories and a map.

John

I have made two short independent "films" on DV. First one was with Sony's PD-150, the fraternal twin of the VX-2000. Then I used (in fact I bought) the Panasonic AG-DVX100, same price range. Suggest you look into it. Shoots regular video, 24P, has XLR audio inputs built into the body, it's a fine piece of equipment.

Thanks for the detailed reply John...
A lot of good suggestions from all you guys. I will take the plunge soon.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents on those sleazoids around NYC in ordering your digital equipment online. I ordered a Canon G3 still and got hassled into lots of extras. I finally got fed up and canceled the whole order, twice! once by phone and by email just to confirm. Last week I got a surprise in my Visa statement...they (ephoto.com) charged my card even after I canceled the order! So what craftech said is true beware the NYC dealers!
Travis

One thing I've been warned about by VX2000 owners is the audio. Apparently, keeping things using AGC minimizes it, but there is still a bit more hiss than their should be.

If you are recording in environments that tend to have enough noise to mask hiss, this would not be a problem.

However, the friends of mine who own one are trying to capture concerts and youth events, and the issue is there, even with XLR adapters (which amount to a transformer for the most part).

The only solution is to have it modified by the BBC - they make it so that the RCA plugs are inputs bypassing the preamp, and then resell a high-quality preamp that mounts under the camera. See groups.yahoo.com - search for VX2000 and BBC.

Apparently the BBC audio mod takes it from the worst audio camera, to better than practically any prosumer camcorder available - far better than the PD150.

Personally, I'm looking to the GL2 (US version of XM2). The lowlight is not quite as good as the VX2000 (some say they come close), but it seems to excel in quite a few other areas, including audio.

-Rohde

I'm tellin' ya--look at the Panasonic DVX100. XLR inputs give great audio, this is a beauty of a camera.

I own both a Sony VX2000 and a Panasonic DVX100. They are both fine cameras, neither one is perfect. In very low light the VX2000 is better. The DVX100 has a more professional audio setup and overall is better suited to pro-style production (everything manual) than the VX2000 which is good for event-style video where you have to rely on auto features (autofocus, auto-exposure, AGC audio).

See also: http://www.bealecorner.com/dvx100/compare/index.html

I own 4 SONY VX2000's and love them. So far, I have not had one problem with them. They produce great quality video and audio. I do use an XLR adapter when needed and so far, the audio has been great! I set it on the manual mode and adjust from there. I would highly recommend the SONY:)

I own a PD150 which as you know has the same picture as the VX2000. I had the chance to compare it directly to a GL2 that a friend was considering purchasing and had on loan. After many tests we both concluded that the PD150 had a noticably superior picture, sharper and more pleasing to the eye and of course this camera is stunning in low light. I agree that the VX2000 has audio issues however.

J\