I am one of the young ones (just 22) that bought a Canon XM2.
After having a Sony DCR-TRV20E for 2 years, and having lot's of problems with it, I founded it time to buy something new, something better.

One of my biggest complains about this one chipper TRV20, is the amount of noise. On a bright day you will get some nice footage, but if you are trying to film on a cloudy day, you will see lots and lots of color noise. I also notice lots of smearing with the TRV20E. You can see this if you try to film for example a white duck in brown black water. You will then see a white duck with some purple ghosting around it.

I just love the picturequality of the XM2.
It is so much better than the TRV20E.
No noise, no smearing, better sound...

END SEARCH
One small button on the TRV20E I used allot is called "end search"
As long as you not remove the tape, you can rewind and play the tape as many times as you want. If you want to film, you only have to press "end search" and the tape will go to the end of the last recording, so the new recording will perfectly be recorded right after the last recording.

I can find a simulair button on the XM2!
Does the XM2 have this feature?

STAMINA
Sony made a very interessting feature with their batteries.
On your camcorder you can see how many minutes of battery are left to film. In the winter this function does not always function correctly, but it is very handy

On the XM2 I only see a small icon, and I cannot see if their is for example 20 minutes or 10 minutes left.
Does the XM2 has a way to show how many minutes of battery there are left??

WHITE BALANCE
The TRV20E had no option to manually set the white balance, but colors where always very nice, and on only rare occasions I got wrong colors.
The XM2 gives nices pictures, if you always manually set the white balance. If I do not manually set the white balance (with a peace of paper) the picture is very often far to red or far to blue.
The TRV20E does not have the ability to manualy use the white balance, but I was not nessesary, the XM2 has the ability to use manually white balance, and I need to do this very often.

CONCLUSION
The XM2 is a very nice 3CCD camcorder, and gives a nice picture,
but the TRV20E had some (nessesary) features, that I can not find on my XM2, wich is a pitty

Gabriel Knight

Good for you, Gabriel!

A few short answers to your questions.

"End Search": Yes the GL2/XM2 has this feature. It's called "Record Search" and is activated by the +/- buttons. See p. 51 of the manual (I'm referring to the NTSC GL2 manual; your page numbers may be slightly diffferent.)

"Stamina": The GL2/XM2 shows the battery status in the viewfinder & lcd as a histogram rather than as time-remaining.

"White Balance": Auto, presets (daylight, tunsten/indoor) or manual are the selections. Manual is generally the best way to go with any camera that offers it. Never use Auto. The Outdoor preset is also fine for sunny daylight, but for shady conditions use Manual to avoid a bluish cast.

Have fun!

My TRV20E has also Record Search, but it works differently than end search. With record search you have to manually search for the last scene, instead of end search.

End search searches automaticly the end of the last recording, instead of using the record search buttons (wich is very difficult to get the new recording precisely at the end of the last one.

The GL2/XM2 (and XL1s) "Record Search" works very well to avoid time code breaks on a tape, particularly if you've removed the tape. By searching forward or backward for record-start marks it positions the tape within a frame or two of the mark.

If I use the record search buttons, I only get time code breaks, that is why am searching the manual for the automatic end search button.

I understand the XM2 does not have end search, so I will practise this recors search buttons to get no more time code breaks.

Gabriel