If the CCD is the brain of a digital video camera it is logical that three should be better than one. A single CCD has to deal with all colours together while a 3-CCD system divides the primary red, green and blue (RGB) colours to individual CCDs to give a much more precise and accurate picture.

The result is a high quality image that is as good as any of the cameras tested - including the Sony DVD201E, which provided the benchmark for most of the others.
While it was the only 3CCD camera tested and the higher quality was reflected in the higher price (it was the second most expensive). However, the inclusion of the 1.7 megapixel still camera functionality also helped justify the price tag, which was certainly not high compared to just a couple of years ago.

The NV-GS120 uses the standard Mini DV tape as opposed to DVD media, but also comes equipped with an 8MB SD memory card slot for still pictures. You can copy video between the tape and the card and the same in reverse with still images, though when it comes to transferring video to the PC the standard FireWire (IEEE 1394) capabilities are required.

The camera has a DV (IEEE 1394) compliant connection to link directly to your PC for real time streaming and recording and USB drivers and cable (there's no DV cable) for transferring still images. Like all of the other DV tape cameras there is an S-Video connector for playing video back on your TV set.

The design of the camera is sleek and compact without being particularly stylish. However, it fits nicely into the hand and isn't too heavy.

Like the Hitachi cameras, the NV-GS120 also has a large battery pack which makes using the view finder a bit uncomfortable but makes up for it with a good quality LCD, which was among the better of those tested and stood up well in bright light.

Overall, the NV-GS120 showed the benefit of the 3CCD set up and produced the best video quality of all of the tape-based cameras.