The 16:9 mode on my old TRV27 looks a whole lot smoother than the 16:9 mode on my VX2000! It has a megapixel CCD for still photos. After looking at the 16:9 picture from both cameras on my TV, I believe that my TRV27 uses the extra CCD pixels to do 16:9 mode rather than stretching or line doubling like the VX2000 does. Can anyone confirm this? From looking at the picture it seems pretty obvious, but in light of all the discussion about how rare 16:9 is in mini-DV cameras it seems kind of strange!

Actually this has been discussed before and several of the less expensive Sony cameras can do "real" 16:9 using high resolution CCD's. The VX-2000 crops to 720 x 360 then stretches to 720 x 480 to make it anamorphic. Not a very good camera to use for 16:9 IMO, although very nice 4:3 results. http://www.greenmist.com/dv/16x9

Laurence,
My 5-year old TRV320 (D8) does the same thing even if it doesn't have a MegaPixel CCD.
In 16:9 mode, the SteadyShot stabilizer is disabled because the cam uses all available pixels in the left and right margins to make the widescreen picture. No pixel left for the re-centering function of the stabilizer.
It does a nicer 16:9 image if you have a widescreen-compatible TV or monitor. If not, you have to resize and letterbox with your editing software to get the correct aspect ratio on a standard TV.

Actually you don't need to resize and letterbox if you're going to DVD. You just need to make sure that you render to a 16:9 mpeg 2 file to make your DVD from. That way the footage will play back correctly on a 16:9 display and your DVD player will do the resizing and letterboxing for you when you play back on a regular 4:3 TV, just like it does on anamorphic DVDs you buy or rent.