Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on May 29, 2006 at 08:50:12

Anyone know where I can get a small monitor (around 3" - 5" or so) for use with my camcorder? Of course, power requirement is a concern. Do they sell any that are battery powered? Or maybe can accept the power output from the mic input section of the camcorder?

My Sony D8 is an old model (DCR-TV7000) and doesn't have a flip-out LCD screen, just a color viewfinder. Well, the viewfinder went out and Sony wants $211 to fix it. A new D8 camcorder can be purchased in the low $200s, so spending $211 for repair is crazy. I'd like to get an add-on LCD screen that will connect to the accessory shoe on the top of the camcorder to use in place of the viewfinder (I can feed it from the RCA video output on the camcorder). I have seen some of the 7" TFT screens for $110 to the under 6" TFT screens for around $70. These are a bit large for my application, but if they would work they'd be fine (if there's an accessory to attach them to the hot shoe).

While I could just get a new camcorder, I don't want to spend the money on one right now. My next camcorder will be a High Definition model. Sony has 2 models in the $1500 range, but I'm hoping that Panasonic will one-up them in 2007. It would be nice to have one with 3 CCDs, instead of the Sony's 1 CCD imager. Here's hoping Panasonic will offer such a version.