JVC Everio GZMC200 2MP Digital Media Camera with 4GB Microdrive & 10x Optical Zoom

Rating:
Summary: Great product, new people might want to wait
Review: This is a great product so long as you know that you are buying a product that is likely to increase in quality and lower in cost quickly. The camera lives up to the claims made by JVC, nothing wrong there. If you are just diving into digital video, you might want to wait for the next generation, for lower cost as well as more products to choose from. The Everio has great software, especially compared to early digital video cameras, and the battery time so far has been great. Overall I have been very happy with this product, but once again, do your homework and know what you are buying...this is not the be all end all of video cameras.

Rating:
Summary: Next chapter in digital video recording
Review: I have owned this unit for 1 week now, and it has lived up to my expectations. First of all, it's all about the 4 gig microdrive! No more tapes, no more spinning DVDs, the microdrive IS the future! The fact that it's in the CompactFlash format makes this camera future-proof: When 40 gig microdrives that run for $100 come out, this camera can take it. When 8 gig solid-state CompactFlash comes out, this camer can take it. (Another plus is it has a SecureDigital slot as well, if gig+ cards ever come out in this format.)

The biggest fear of digital recording is quality: this camera says it can record DVD quality video (480i), and it delivers! I have a 50" plasma, so it's very easy for me to discern video compression artifacts. Being able to record at 16:9 aspect is also a must-have for HDTV owners. The only limiting factors to video quality are 1) lighting - this camera records signifcantly better under good light, like most other camers 2) minimal movements - resolution does suffer with excessive panning and zooming. Since the media is recorded natively in MPEG-2, its easy to transfer it directly to DVD format. And played under a upconversion DVD player at 720P, your home videos look fantastic! (Until consumer HD camcorders come out, that is.)

A few negatives I should mention:

- The shape of the unit is small and almost cubical, which is innovative and cool looking, but sometimes awkward to hold in your hand for a long time

- The battery is short-lived, lasting shorter than the 60-min hi-quality image you can record onto the microdrive. So buy a spare!

- The motion-stabilization feature doesn't work too well, so hopefully you have a steady hand or a good stand!

Few faults aside, this is the camera that will usher in the age of digital video recording. I would recommend this camera to those who like bleeding edge technology and don't mind the occasional warts

Rating:
Summary: Looks promising
Review: I just pre-ordered the first hard drive-based camcorder, the JVC Everio GZ-MC200, after reading a full review in today's New York Times (11/25/04, available online for 30 days). The reviewer liked this over the smaller version, the MC100, and the price difference on Amazon makes the MC200 a better buy. The Times review mentioned excellent video quality (and 2MP stills) and ease of use. I'll come back with my own hands-on review after I get mine from Amazon.

Happy holidays.

Rating:
Summary: Has its pluses and minuses
Review: Pluses are obvious - slap the CF card in your PC reader and you can instantly start editing, converting, and/or burning the video to DVD. Much more convenient than (ugh) in-camera DV capture with a regular DV video camera. The accompanying software package is a perfect match for this camera. Also, this camera is freaking TINY. Although the video is not as good as my DV camera, I will undoubtably use it much more. Audio is excellent, Dolby Digital.

Minuses - Compared to my Sony DV camera, the focusing is slow and inaccurate. Holding the camera still is extremely difficult because of its size - the stability feature is essential although not spectacular - you need to work to keep this thing still. Although the resolution is the same as DV (720x480), I think my DV cameras picture is better, probably due to the CCD. The picture is not very sharp, and movement is pretty blurry.

Conclusion: This is an early adopter product. I would love to see a version with a better CCD and flash, which will undoubtably be down the road the next 12 months or so.






Rating:
Summary: A good SECOND camcorder
Review: While there is much I really like about this camera, its short comings prevent me from recommending it to people who want just one video camera. The problems I am experiencing deal mostly with the camera's POOR performance in medium to low light conditions. While many camcorders excel at producing images in standard room lighting, this camera does a dismal job. In normal room lighting the auto focus will occasionally fail and even at the best of the times the images lack adequate saturation. The manual white balance settings improve the situation only marginally. If you are going to be shooting inside your house, use another camcorder.

Now the upside - the camcorder delivers good quality images when shooting outside. Motion artifacts are occasionally detectable when objects in the scene move quickly but not annoying at all. The zoom is quite satisfying and the auto focus only lags slightly behind when quickly zooming in the 10x optical zoom range. The compact size is spectacular! The standard tripod mount socket is a welcome addition.

And, of course, the whole video editing experience is greatly enhanced by the direct transfer of the camera's hard drive to your editing station's hard drive. (I recommend you get a card reader or PCMCIA adapter, so the camera isn't involved in the video transfer. You can be charging the camera while you are working with the saved video - something you'll do often as the battery only lasts an hour).

The saved video files have a .mod extension. The manual says you should only use the supplied software to edit/play the video files. The supplied software is from Cyberlink and it is adequate. I have found that by renaming the files to .mpg after I have copied them to my editing station, I can edit/play the video files with software not supplied with the camera. Don't know if this will work in all cases, but so far so good.

The still camera images are actually quite nice for a 2 mega pixel camera. They are always saved as JPEG files. I have found no option to save as a lossless TIFF. A real shame since the supplied 4GB microdrive really has enough room to store these big files.

The audio quality is excellent, no complaints what so ever.

One last disappointment - the camera limits maximum file size to 4GB, even if you have a compact flash card that can hold more. As a result it shall forever be impossible for this camera to record more than 60 continuous minutes using the highest quality video setting. Sure, an 8GB card can hold 2 of these 60 minute recordings but something will be missed when the first file hits the 4GB wall and the recording is stopped and the camera waits for you to manually start a new recording session.