Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon ZR45MC MiniDV Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD, Digital Still Mode & MMC Card Slot

I love this camcorder. First of all, I am going to start this review by telling you about the biggest concern I had when I bought this camera. Many people say that there was a lot of motor hum, this may be the case when the room is TOTALLY silent, however an external mic fixes this. ALL MINIDV CAMERAS HAVE THIS PROBLEM!! People complain that the mic adds extra size, but if you want to spend the same amount of money on a digital 8, with less resolution, much bigger, and heavier, than get a Mic for your MiniDV, then you have some problems. However since I usually overlap music onto my videos, its not such a big probelm for me. The size is great (any bigger and it wouldn't be comfortable, and any smaller it would be difficult to hold). I had the Sony TRV-340 Digital 8 Camera and then returned for only one reason, it was heavy and big (it cut off circulation in my hand when I was filming, and would have to take it out every 5 minutes or it would become numb). The picture quality is pretty much the same as all other minidv's which are better than digital 8's but not enough to make a big difference. Pretty much, this is a good camera at a great price. If you want a MiniDV, go with this no doubt, however if you have hi 8 or 8mm tapes you should probably go with a digital 8. They are pretty good for the price, but big and bulky.

I did extensive research on this model (the whole ZR series) and I must say, a lot of things are positive for this little camera.
* light weight, * small, * bright outdoor pictures, * PRICE.
And some negative points raised by many so far, which of course I have not been able to test as I have not bought this item, is the motor noise being recorded and the night shots being grainy.
I will not discuss anything about it as they have been beaten to death by now.
What I want to talk about is the smaller CCD resolution on the ZR series camcorders.
As we know, the US spec ZR series have the 460K pixels, out of which only 290K pixels are used for video (effective pixels). We need about 420K effective pixels to get a 500 line video resolution on the TV. Most of us know that, the VHS format (video tapes) allow upto 240lines of horizontal resolution. The S-VHS tapes allow upto 400 lines and the Digital Video format goes to 525 lines (really crisp and sharp pictures) on the TV/visual media.

So now, with mere 290K effective pixels of video resolution being recorded on the ZR40/45/50, the best lines of resolution would be around 300. Now, not everything is bad. If you intend to transfer your videos into VHS tapes for storage and future viewing, you will not have any complaints as VHS tapes store at 240 lines of resolution. But someone like me, who wants to store the video digitally, by burning them into DVDs or storing them in DV tapes, I would like to get the best resolution that I can, right?

In simple words, I want 500 lines of resolution for my video, full stop! Even though ZR40 is a DV camera, its resolution is very poor for real digital quality video.

By the way, the resolution has got everything to do with what we call SHARP, crisp and colorful pictures. It is the same difference you see between the movies played from the VHS tape and movies played from the DVD.

Oh by the way, if your TV doesn't have a 500 line horizontal resolution capability, you are not getting the money's worth by renting DVDs. The TV I bought about 4 yrs ago, a proscan 32 inch, has 700 lines of horizontal resolution. So I can assume most TVs in our houses have capable enough TVs. Going slightly off topic, do you know why the picture quality of HDTVs are so sharp? Bcoz their resolutions are almost double than the 500 lines I am talking about.

Wow, was my first word when I opened it up. It is so small. I have not had a chance to explore all its functions yet, but so far it works great and gives high quality video. The picture function is also a great plus. This camcorder is well priced for what it offers

The high pitched motor noise is present in recordings, not only in very quiet situations (as my prvious review indicated, based on CanonDV site), but is also present when the camera is placed in front of speakers playing music.

The above info is based on my playing two sample sound clips posted in a review at dvspot website by Jeff Keller.

The persistant motor whine was VERY irritating and definately unacceptable.

Since I love everything else about the ZR45/ZR50, I am now debating whether to buy it with the Canon DM-50 external mic for my upcoming vacation, or to wait until Spring/Summer 2003 and see if Canon fixes this problem in an upgraded model.

Decisions, decisions, decisions!

It's light, it's convenient, it's easy to use. But what does it matter? In the end, the unit produces so much buzzing that it renders itself useless. It's just too annoying, and I would not ever want to watch the footage. I've been working with this for a year, sending it back and forth to Canon, and they tell me there is some "allowable buzzing." They actually replaced mine, hoping it would appease me, but the second unit was exactly the same.

I've now missed filming the first 19 months of my daughter's life because of this. Canon doesn't seem to care much. Time to sell it on ....