The tiny Canon MV960 comes with one impressive feature straight out of the box – it records in true widescreen format. That means that, for those with widescreen televisions, it represents the best way to make full use of the screen’s width.
It’s possible to make a wide picture on a normal camcorder by chopping off the top and bottom of the picture, but the MV960 does that without the corresponding loss in quality.
This is the high end of Canon’s budget DV camera range, which means it comes with DV-in as well as DV-out. This means that, as well as sending rough footage to a computer for editing, it’s possible to play the digital video back to a tape in the camera once it’s been edited. This allows you to distribute or archive home movies on tape – since a one hour tape can store 13Gb, it’s sometimes a more efficient archive medium than DVD or a hard disk.
Overall, the MV960 was easy to use. Shooting footage was as easy as popping in a tape, switching the master power switch to record mode and pressing the record button. Images and video can also be recorded onto an SD memory card, a slot for which is mounted on the side of the camera.
The viewfinder doesn’t telescope out, which made it a little hard to use, but the large viewing screen was clear and could be swivelled out and rotated back into the camera body.
The array of buttons found on earlier camcorders has been shrunk down to just four and a joystick. Despite the absence of dedicated buttons, though, an intuitive menu system means it was no harder to get to required features.
The integrated lens cap, which flips down using a switch on the side, is a nice touch. However, the record button is a little close to the master power switch, meaning we accidentally switched the camera off once or twice, but this becomes less of a risk with experience. The 25x optical zoom is very impressive, although the widest angle (2.6mm) is still a little close-in. But the longest angle (65mm) allows for a hugely zoomed-in image, which is handy.
Video quality was good, but not quite up to that from more expensive models. That manifested itself in a little noise on the image, mainly noticeable in low light. There is a front-mounted light, but it’s not very powerful and lent everything a ghostly glow.
For those without a widescreen television, the MV960 can also shoot in normal mode, but by chopping off the sides of the picture, which means a slightly lower image quality. Anyone who wants to shoot in widescreen, however, will be hard pressed to find a cheaper camera of this quality.
Newer camcorders can record straight to special DVDs, or on an internal hard disk, both of which make for more flexible recording and storage than can be had using tapes. However, as tape-based camcorders go, this is an excellent choice.
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