Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not a great product
Comment: I bought this camcorder years and years ago (not off of amazon) and I'm pissed mostly because the guy I bought it from told me it would play my old 8mm analog video tapes. IT DOES NOT!!! So if you are looking for a digital camera that allows you to do this, don't buy this camera. And if you aren't wanting to play analog tapes, go buy a miniDV camera, don't waste your time with Digital 8. Also, this camera does not have a microphone jack, so if you want to get decent sound, don't buy this camera. It also has a crappy battery life, and it's a lot bigger and chunkier than the image makes it look.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Camera - but now it is broken with little use
Comment: I am very dissapointed with SONY products in general. They have always been my preferred brand for TVs and other electronics over the years. But in the past 5 years we have purchased a home entertainment center and this camcorder and with hardly any use they are both broken and obviously out of warranty. The home entertainment center was fixed by Sony by them sending us a completely new unit - and it has the exact same error message as the old one - and we hardly used the thing and now it is broken, out of warranty and stuck on the "Standby" message which blinks continuously :( And For the Camcorder - we only used it occasionally and have recorded a total of 3 of the mini tapes and now SONY wants me to pay $211 flat rate to fix unit since it is out of warranty... Very dissapointing - especially since I always believed they made quality products. We will not purchase SONY products again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Poor IEEE-1394 support
Comment: I bought my camera over a year ago and I'm very please with all the options. Great zoom, great night shoot, take great quality movies and all. The only drawback I've found so far is the IEEE-1394 support. There's no way to sincronize it when capturing video using the firewire option. The sound is garbled when using with Vegas Foundry 4.0 and the capture run too fast out of sinc on windows movie maker 2. I tried everything including using my other computer which has a different type of IEEE-1394 card and the problem is the same. I tried getting some help from the people at Sony but all they say is they are not responsible with compatibility issues with third party firewire cards. It doesn't matter how many times you write them, that is the only answer you get. So, with that and all, is not a bad camera at all, just don't plan on using firewire for your movie capture, just be please with the usb or you can use the s-video option if you have a vide capture card.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Eject tape broke and Sony won't fix it
Comment: We had been very happy with this camcorder - until we pulled it out to take Christmas pictures of our 15-month old son and the camcorder wouldn't record. It wouldn't eject the tape, and after repeated calls to customer service, we've been told that they'll pay for parts, but the labor to fix it is just over $200. Unfortunately even though we've only used the camcorder for under 15 hours, we're outside the 90 days for labor warranty (who'd have thought the camcorder would be unusable after under 15 hours of use?).Still waiting on a callback from customer service, but having gone up 4 levels already, it's not looking like they'll fix the product.
Think our model will be headed for the trash - and we'll be looking at anything BUT Sony for future purchases. I would definitely steer clear of a Sony after this experience.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great starter digital camcorder
Comment: When I first started to look at camcorders I didn't know exactly what I wanted. The number of features was overwhelming and I wasn't sure which ones would prove valuable. I ended up decided on a set of core features: digital recording, reasonable size, good zoom and computer connectivity.I finally ended up with the TRV-140 and it has been great. It is a standard handcam size, which means it fits comfortably in your hand but isn't tiny. The 20x optical zoom is very nice. I have yet to need the digital zoom and haven't even considered buying a telephoto lens.
To connect the camera to your computer all you need is a firewire card and the right cable (4 pin to 6 pin). Transferring video was as simple as connecting the cable. Windows XP immediately recognized the camera and I was able to capture and edit film using the MovieMaker software included with XP.
My only complaint is the battery life. The standard battery doesn't last very long, especially if you use the LCD. Consider picking up a second battery when you purchase the camcorder. Sony has a couple of offerings, but all are rather expensive. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, check out the compatible batteries made by Duracell or Ray-o-vac.
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