The PV-DV73 sports an impressively bright fluorescent light that illuminates objects 5 or 6 feet away: If you ever got lost in the woods filming your version of The Blair Witch Project, you could use it as a flashlight to find your way home. The rest of the camcorder looks equally impressive, from its barrel-like lens equipped with a manual focus ring to its large, embedded microphone and its tape loader located conveniently in the LCD. The LCD is one of the biggest in this roundup, too; at 3.5 inches, it makes playing back video a pleasure.

One area where the DV73 is superior to its more expensive stablemate, the PV-DV953, is in low-light shooting. It's the only camcorder we tested to offer both infrared LED- and white light-assisted video; you can quickly turn each on and off. The DV73's super-bright white lamp yielded the sharpest, most color-rich video of the bunch. If you plan to shoot lots of low and no-light scenes, this is a definite plus.

The menus and controls were easy to use, with informative names and simple navigation. Button and dial placement worked well also; we liked the combined zoom and volume control, as well as the smooth-action jog wheel. However, the menu-key placement (on the upper-right back panel next to the viewfinder) is difficult to get to with your right thumb: Instead, you have to reach around the viewfinder with your left hand.

But in many ways, the PV-DV73 fails where its more expensive cousin, the PV-DV953, excels. It feels uncomfortable: The sharp corners of the case dig into your palm after a few minutes. The PV-DV73 also turned in the shortest battery life of all the MiniDV models we tested: a disappointing 1 hour and 2 minutes from the included 800mAh battery in our tests.

You can record and use the menus using the viewfinder, but for playback, you have to flip out the LCD. While you do get a jack for an external microphone, there's no accessory shoe for mounting it on top of the camcorder. For photos, the DV73 captures 640 by 480 resolution and can interpolate (which adds extra pixels) up to 1280 by 960 pixels. The interpolated images the camcorder produced looked fine.

The FireWire and USB 2.0 ports are under the LCD, forcing you to keep the panel flipped out when you're connected to your PC. But the S-Video port is hidden under the battery pack, so you'll have to remove the battery and run the camcorder from AC power if you want to watch videos on an S-Video-enabled TV.

The PV-DV953 is a decent enough camcorder, but it can be uncomfortable to use for long periods.

Bryan Hastings

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