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Rating:  -
While the Everio will work on a Mac, it is with JVC's movie program. It is not iMovie ready. There is a very strange "work around" involving DVDrop that will make it work. Not very pleased with what I feel is misleading information about compatibility with Mac.
Rating:  -
I agree with the many other users who have experienced the "Condensation, Operation Paused" defect on their JVC GR-xxxx. Despite numerous others reporting this problem, JVC says its not a recognized problem. I would disagree - it is a recognized problem, but its your problem, not theirs.
Rating: -
I bought this to replace my broken Digital8 Sony camcorder and the same sales guy who sold me the Sony 6 years ago advised me to buy this JVC, on one single criterion: the near-infinite hard disk drive storage. This was almost the only claim that was actually fulfilled.
Summary: infinite recording time, disappointing image quality and control for the price, painful editing. Not for the average iMovie user.
Positive points:
- the storage capacity: a dream. I thought that 7 hours of high-quality video would barely last two weeks of vacation. Actually it took me months to fill them. Mostly because, as with digital cameras, you can throw away all the bad takes at will. I decided I'd keep all my previous good takes until I really would need the space, well... I still have my best clips from 5 months ago in the camcorder, which means that I can always show them at friends and family on location, even if I don't have my computer or DVD copies on me.
- the size, weight and shape: perfect. You can take this camcorder anywhere without facing hard packing decisions. It's small, feels rather rugged. I added a wide-angle lens and the bigger optional battery, which makes the camera 50% bulkier but still manageable. The shape is great, at least for my hand size. I can really grab the camera properly in various situations of verticality and bumpiness... The microphones are not that well placed though, and I often cover them with my fingers.
- image stabilization: very good. By chance I shot a clip with my wide-angle lens in the way, which gave me a good fixed reference to see how the beast is fast and smooth at correcting unwanted shakiness.
- ease of connection: the USB2 link is OK. I'd have preferred firewire, but here we are not dealing with video streams but video files. BTW, this allows faster-than-real-time transfer. A firewire link with the camcorder acting as a hard disk would have been great...
OK points: user interface, reaction time (even if it takes a long time to get ready), optics, battery life (with the 3 hour batt. - actually a 1.5 hours).
Negative points :
- Image quality: considering the price, image quality is disappointing. Frankly. The viewfinder is flattering but color saturation is in fact low, and clips shot on sunny days seem sadder than they are as I found out after shooting for a whole week in Yucatan. Clips shot on my digital camera (Canon IXUS 60) look better. There is also a lack of control on image quality.
- Digital camera: simply forget it. My phone takes better pictures. I'd advise you to buy a 2Mpix+ cellphone and enjoy the benefit of sending your pics and videos immediately to far-away family and pals.
- File transfer and editing: pretty horrible with the originally supplied software. In marketing copy, MPEG2 files might seem nice as a target format, but we always have to edit our videos, and this is quite painful, whatever power-users might tell you. You are in for hours of conversion, except if you burn your raw takes, at the risk of boring your audience.
I was going to write "don't buy this if you are a Mac user". This is NOT iMovie ready. I have both PCs and Macs, it's equally painful and disappointing, except if you buy yourself a real video editing suite.
Still, if you have a Mac and an Everio get yourself the wonderful MPEG Streamclip free utility from Squared 5. It allows batch conversion of the Everio .MOD files into useable formats. You'll have to buy the MPEG2 component from Apple first and change the .MOD extensions to .MPG prior to conversions. Time- and disk-space-consuming but worth it, as the image quality is superior to the one generated by the JVC-supplied software.
Neat thing: leave your computer at home
Though you can't use the camcorder as an external hard disk (it is write-protected) you can copy the photographs from the SD card to the hard-disk, which means that with the Everio, you wont need to bring your computer on a trip just to store the pictures from your digital camera.
Conclusion: given the choice, I won't buy this camcorder, mainly for the below-par image quality, as I'm ready to cope with the complications of conversion and editing. But I'd seriously miss the storage capacity.
Rating:  -
You know what I hate about video tapes in camcorders? You never really know where the record heads are:
"If I hit record now, am I taping over something else? Now let's see, the last time I played back the tape, I think I fast forwarded back to the current record mark... or did I? Ooops, I missed my chance at a great clip... again."
With a hard drive, there is no chance of recording over older clips. The camera is always ready to record, if the battery is still charged. Yes, the battery it comes with lasts about an hour. I have never ever in my entire life of video camera using/owning needed to record more than one hour at a time. When I am not using this camera, it sits in the camera bag charging off the AC adapter. This isnt a hard thing to do, so I dont know why so many people complain about the battery life.
The still camera capabilities are not too bad really. Sure, the still pics are at the same resolution as the first digital camera I ever owned, but I still got some good images at ~1.3MP. Changing into still camera mode is ver easy and done with the switch, vs. through the GUI.
I did not know about the CF slot when I bought the camera, so that was a very nice bonus to me, as all of our digital cameras use CF as well.
Having the 30 gigs of space is nice, but in hind sight, the better glass on the lens is what this model is all about when compaired to its siblings.
I leave the video quality on the highest resolution, and occasionaly copy the videos to my external HDD for editing, backups, etc.
I got this model video camera because we have a new baby, and I was tired of putting energy into making sure I wasnt taping over priceless moments.
With this video camera, that fear is gone, and I am able to get on with capturing our memories.
Rating:  -
This is the second camcorder that I have owned, and I love it. Its smple and easy to use, and the picture quality is a whole lot better than my old higher end samsung mini dv, very easy to transfer and work with your videos, Very compact, very good camera would suggest to any friend.
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