Great camera at a great price!

With so many camcorders on the market these days, it's mind boggling to say the least. How does one choose which camcorder to purchase? My husband and I went through this dilemma on numerous occasions. We've been looking at camcorders now for about 3 months, trying to find the right one for our needs and budget. We finally decided on the Sony CCD-TRV37. With it's decent set of features and wonderful price, we just couldn't resist the purchase.

After being able to play around with it now for about two weeks, I thought that I'd let you all know our experience with this product.

The main features of this camcorder are as follows: a built in Night Shot video light, a Lithium Ion Battery System, 20XOptical/200 Digital Zoom, viewfinder or LCD screen recording and playback and a fader function.

It's very easy to set up, right out of the box. One of the nicest things that Sony has done for you, is to include a two hour battery with your purchase. No need to purchase an expensive $50 battery to use your camcorder right off the bat. Believe me, that's a godsend! It took about an hour and a half to fully charge it. It also charges a little longer than the two hours it states. If you let it sit on the charger for an hour after the display says that it's fully charged, you'll be able to get yourself an extra 46 minutes of recording time. Which will come in very handy.

It has a built in Night Shot video light for those hard to shoot places. It came in perfect while recording an awards assembly at our daughter's school. A word of caution if using this feature, do not use it outdoors in the daytime as it may cause your camcorder to malfunction. I'm not sure as to why it would do this but Sony warns against it.

With the fader function, you can fade in or out to give your recording a professional look. When fading in, in monotone methods, the picture gradually changed from black and white to color. When fading out, the picture gradually changes from color to black and white. Something a little different to add to your videos.

It also has a program for auto exposure. Here are a few examples:
Spotlight mode: This mode prevents peoples' faces as an example, from appearing too white when shooting them lit by strong light.

Soft Portrait Mode: This brings out the subject while creating a softer background.

Sports lesson Mode: This minimizes shake on fast moving subjects as in a tennis ball.

Beach and Ski Mode: This prevents peoples' faces from appearing dark in strong light or reflected light from the snow or water.

Landscape Mode: This is for when you are recording distant subjects such as mountains and prevents your camcorder from focusing on glass or mesh from such things as window screens, etc.

Overall, this camera has a great set of features and gives good quality recording. We are very pleased with our decision to purchase it.