Introduced in the summer of 2000, the Sony DCR-VX2000 was a famous workhorse of a mini-DV camera within two years of its debut. It is still used, these many years later, by legions of both amateurs and professionals for documentaries, commercials, interviews and other fieldwork. Much of the material shot on VBX2000s is intended for conversion to mobile/web formats and the mini-DV format is supported by all leading software audio/video editing applications (Vegas, Avid, Adobe Premiere , FinalCut
Nothing earns the status of workhorse without a lot of people using it and attesting to its solid performance, and the term also connotes toughness, resilience and dependability. Holding to the highest standards is how Sony came to be an internationally respected brand, across a wide swath of the consumer and professional audio/video markets. As far as their video cameras, Sony has a large, proud, veteran and vocal group of loyalists, and they’re not afraid to “vocalize” their concerns about product shortcomings. Frankly, Sony engineers welcome the frank feedback, as they carry on the company’s tradition of listening to its customers, especially the pros. The VX2000, in fact, came into existence because of reaction to the first model in the new DCR-VX line.
With its excellent build quality and features that the first-generation VX1000 lacked, the VX2000 was a hit. Four years later, Sony sought to further improve it with the VX2100 but, as the online user forums indicate, Wood was not alone in sticking with the earlier model, with its reputation for durability and ease of use.
Some users feel that the unit is heavy when used for long periods of time (weight is 3 lbs., 6 oz.) but plenty of other directors are shouldering 8-lb. Canons and 10-lb. Varicams for those obligatory POV shots. Be that as it may, the VX2000 stayed close to its predecessor’s original ergonomics even as the components evolved.
The VX line’s standard battery, the NP-F330, was notorious for its short 45 minutes of use; for 16 hours of shooting, owners bought the optional NP-F960 unit. Other cost-cutting features marred the camera’s high-end aspirations, including a meager 4MB MemoryStick and 640×480 pixel resolution for stills. However, Wood does take snapshots with the VX2000 to block out shots.
Consumer camcorders use one CCD (charge-couple device) for all three colors, whereas professional-grade units use three, one each for red, green and blue. A three-CCD design contributes to the VX2000’s good color reproduction, and Sony’s exclusive high-performance HAD (Hole-Accumulation Diode) sensors include the near-infrared light region, resulting in greater range and more realistic colors.
The VX2000 has 12x optical zoom, while the digital zoom goes to 48x with little degradation. The unit also incorporates a more expensive type of image stabilizer; as opposed to digital stabilizers used in consumer models, Sony’s Super SteadyShot optical stabilization does not decrease picture resolution.
The camcorder’s seven-element, aspherical 58mm lens almost completely does away with image distortion, while the dual-mode filter combats troublesome lighting conditions. The VX2000 provides a decent amount of manual control – focus, white balance, shutter speed, etc. – as well as several automatic modes.
The 200,000-pixel, 2.5-inch LCD panel is crisp, as is the viewfinder. Avoid the onboard microphone for audio, of course, and opt for an outboard unit to take advantage of the 12- and 16-bit recording. Audio is saved in a standard PCM digital stereo format.
Finally, an IEEE 1394 connection -Apple’s “FireWire,” Sony’s “iLink” – allows uploading of video to a computer for editing. The flash memory card that was part of the specification in 2000, a 4MB MemoryStick, is woefully inadequate for this task, but today you can get a 4GB MemoryStick for what that tiny one cost at the beginning of the New Millennium. And that’s a kind of progress that would make a great article in itself. Stay tuned!
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