I had a Sony Hi-8 that was great. I love my Canon digital cameras so I thought I'd get a Canon MiniDV. Well, it works fine and has good features. The video is great, the audio and low light is probably not up to the Sony camcorders. Still, for the money I liked it and was happy. Just out of warranty it goes black and won't record. The shutter or CCD is dead. Reading online this seems to be a common problem with Canon camcorders. So, my new Sony MiniDV is rocking. If you are looking at a Camera, get a Canon, if you are looking at camcorders, get a Sony.

This has got to be the (...) product I have ever bought. Purchased July 2003, I have seldom used it as it was a gift for my mom. I used it last week and now suddenly it won't display anything in Camera mode! (...)

Please don't even think about buying this, chances are that it will die on you as well. It is a shame as I have always used Canon digital cameras, but it seems they suck at making camcorders.

Sure enough, about a month after the 1 year warranty expired, all I can record are vertical streaks. It still plays back fine, so I believe it's a problem with the CCD or associated electronics.

This is nothing new. I had to return my cellphone (twice), my PDA (three times), and my wireless router (only once) before I finally got a good one. I take good care of things and when something works, I hang on to it for a long time. I've had the phone for four years now and the PDA for three.

Unfortunately, when it comes to quality and customer service, any brand can be lacking. I feel the only leverage I have is to be careful which retailer I buy from and ask for a refund if the product isn't satisfactory. A camcorder that stops working after less than two hours of recording time isn't acceptable, warranty or not. I don't want to deal with the manufacturer's customer service and repair people; I want the retailer I bought it from to make it right.

What about the camera? I agree with the other reviewers; I was satisfied with it when it was working, which makes it even more of a disappointment. If you could give ratings for specific things, I'd give the product four stars for price and features but zero for quality.

Don't get mad, get your money back! Cheers,

I thought I made a good purchase. i didn't want a real expensive camcorder and this one had everything I wanted. However 13 months after i bought it the LCD viewfinder stopped working. Every other function worked except the only thing I could record was black. Plus the camera won't be repaired until after Christmas. If you choose to buy this camrea beware and buy an optional warranty because you will be repairing it.

This is the last Canon product I'll ever purchase!

Maybe I am just picky, because this was my first video camera and I am spoiled by good quality 35mm SLR cameras. If used in the daytime with good sunlight, this camera takes fantastic video. If you try it indoors or low light, the quality degrades significantly.

Moving the video from the camera to the PC or DVD is extremely easy. It comes with a cable to connect to your DVD player or TV. Just plug it in and used the remote (also included). There are several software programs available (Movie Maker, Sonic) that make creating your own DVD's a snap.

I would suggest you also purchase a zoom lens for close-ups and a wide angle lens so you don't have to stand in the next room to get a video of the next birthday party.

The best feature on this camera is it's ability to record VCR tapes directly to digital format. This allows you to easily transfer all of your old home movies on VHS to mini-DV or even DVD.

Overall it's a good video camera for the price. As with any technology, there will always be something better coming out next week.

This camera worked great for the price that it sells for. I was able to creat DVDs that the family loves. I would say that the image quality during low light conditions is not the best, but with regular light it is fine. The MIC is omnidirectional which means it picks up anything from any direction, and it is not of the best quality. An external MIC would be a good idea. Overall I would recommend this camera to anyone on a budget.

Canon is a very good company, I am happy with the ZR60 I bought as others have mentioned. But this month (9/05) the sensor went out after a bit less than two years! You can be pretty sure the sensor is out when you detect no light at all (black screen on LCD and viewfinder) but sound recording still works. I went on this website to look up the product and found several unhappy customers complaining about the sensor going out also. I went to the canon web site and manual to try to figure out what was wrong and concluded that my sensor was out. I then looked at the Canon web site and did not find anything on this except the support line. I called and after a 3 or 4 minutes on hold was connected to someone who seemed familiar with this problem and I was delighted to hear that I would get a new sensor at no charge if the sensor problem was indeed what was wrong. I spent $13.80 to ship it (insured and confirmed delivery) and within two weeks I have my camera back and it is working. I am relieved I did not have an expensive repair to deal with. Overall, I am very happy with the product and service. Just wish the sensors were more stable and wonder now if the new sensor will go out in a couple of years or if it will be good for the 10 years I would expect.

Great value for the money (at the time, and now). Very high quality images in good lighting, especially outdoors; average to lower quality in low lighting (but hard to blame this on Canon; my old Sony was worse). No motor noise or any other problems. No problems with buttons, functions, etc. Just thinking about a new one now since the 2.2M pixel CCDs are the norm now, and this one has less.

Just over a year after purchase, the LCD screen went black. I did some research online and heard about the CCD malfunctioning in a bunch of canon series camcorders, including the ZR60. The camera tech I took it to was going to charge me $300 to fix it, but luckily Canon did it for free! because of this happening to so many cameras! So, since I got it fixed it still works great! I wouldn't use it for anything professional, but its small enough to carry around for a good time and film home movies!

Overall, the camera houses some nice manual features, and an external mic in, and is very user friendly. However, you get what you pay for. The color defintion is not there; anything less than full sun and the colors drain out of the picture. Low light performance leads the camera to crank up the gain and produce a noisy image that I would call un presentable, but still fine for the price range. The camera always seems to be two steps away from a black and white image, so plan to do some color correction to fix the image. I agree with everyone else on the external mic; the tape transport is noisy. In the end, however, I love the camera. It's low quality, cheap, but has tons of features and a shoe and mic input to add a shotgun to the top. I know of many cameras that cost much much more than this one that do not even provide a headphone jack seperate from the microphone input. I realy love the camera, and you will too, as long as you can compromise on the image quality in lower light and the audio issue.