Review: Canon MV960 camcorder

The most impressive feature of the MV960, the flagship model in Canon's new range of DV camcorders, is that it's a true widescreen camera.

The CCD has a widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio, meaning that it records in that aspect ratio as standard, without having to chop off parts of the picture, or resort to other trickery to get a widescreen image.

This makes it far more useful for the growing number of people with widescreen televisions and computer monitors - although for anyone stuck with a standard aspect ratio screen the MV960 can also switch to 4:3 mode (though this does mean cutting off the sides of the picture resulting in a slight drop in quality).

Being the top of the range, it comes with DV-in (in the form of a mini-Firewire port) as well as DV-out, which means it's possible to record footage back to the camera once it's been edited.

Since this is performed digitally, there's no loss in quality. There's also a whopping 25x optical zoom, allowing you to get close up to the action. At that magnification though, you will need a tripod or firm base to avoid camera shake.

If you should run out of tape, both images and footage can be saved to an SD card, which is inserted into a slot at the side of the camera.

Another good feature of the MV960 is that it's easy to use. Starting to shoot is simply a case of popping in the tape, switching it on and pressing the record button.

One design flaw is that this is a little close to the master power switch and our fingers managed to switch the whole thing off while attempting to record some footage. However, it's not a major problem once you're used to the positions of the switches.

Video quality is good, although it's not as impressive as what you'll get from more expensive competitors which have larger CCDs.

That manifests itself in a slight coating of noise on the image, which is r eally only a problem in low light conditions.

A powerful white LED mounted on the front of the camera can be used to illuminate a subject, but we didn't find it to be of much use. It's too weak for most situations and tended to give people an unfortunate ghostly blue cast.

Those minor qualms aside, however, anyone who wants to shoot in widescreen will be hard-pressed to find a cheaper camera that produces video this good.