Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great camera for 2 1/2 years
Comment: I, too, am very, very disappointed in my Sony experience. I have always treated my cameras with care and respect. (I still use my 30 year old Canon A-1.)
My DCR TRV38 was excellent until 2 months ago (and 7 months out of the 2 year warranty that I purchased...). I now cannot view anything recorded. I get a blue screen with icons. It acts like it is recording, and maybe it is, but I cannot view anything in playback. A Sony tech told me that this is different that the class action/ recall that Sony is offering on these units. But c'mon! 2 years on a $700 camera is just horrible.
I also own a Sony W-1 digital camera. Lens mechanism stuck at 1+ years. Lots and lots of others reporting the same problem. Still under warranty, thank goodness, but I cannot trust it for a photo shoot, so I bought a Canon A540.
My daughter owns a Sony P-41, not even 2 years. Guess what? Bad LCD once again. She cannot view or play back at all.
I love digital photography, but to have a thousand dollars worth of equipment fail in four months is a crime. When I would read the postings and ranting of others, I never thought I would be one to have problems. I just thought that those with problems complain alot. But it's WAY too many, on every message board, everywhere. I am so sad and I feel like the victim of a crime.
SO DON"T BUY ANY MORE SONY PRODUCTS!!!
Customer Rating: Summary: Blank LCD Screen and Viewfinder
Comment: I, too, experienced the dreaded blank screen on my TRV38 after only a year and a half of moderate use. I did some internet searching on the issue and discovered a site that mentioned Sony has acknowledged problems with the CCD chip in certain models built before 2004, the TRV38 being one of them and are offering to fix them for free, including shipping to and from a location of your choice. I then went made use of their excellent sony.com online chat support service and asked the moderator about the free repair deal. After a few troubleshooting questions, he acknowleded I appeared to qualify for the free repair service and provided me with the following site, http://esupport.sony.com/perl/news-item.pl?mdl=DCRTRV38&news_id=95. They appear to be making good on a known defect in their product and are to be commmended. Now, if only the local service centers would inform customers of this deal when they bring their cameras in for repair of this malady...naw, that's asking waaaaay too much!! By the way, aside from this problem, we've been very happy with this camera and actually bought a second one as a back up in case we had problems with the first one. With 2 kids, ages 2 1/2 and 4, to record precious moments of, it sure paid off in this case.
