JVC Everio GZHD3 3CCD 60GB Hard Disk Drive High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

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Price: $1,449.99 $350.00   

Product Feature

• Capture and share home movies in full HD
• Built-in 60 GB hard disk drive; SD/SDHC memory card slot
• Three 1/5-inch CCDs with 1440 x 1080 (square) pixels
• Fujinon 10x optical zoom lens
• Optical image stabilization; Focal Assist function

Product Description

The art and practicality of the HD video camcorder has reached a convenient size for simple everyday use with the JVC Everio GZ-HD3. With recording capability of up to 1440x1080 resolution, your vids can fill the high performance screen of your new widescreen HDTV for a new era of viewing pleasure. The lens of the GZ-HD3 was developed by KonicaMinolta and delivers an extremely detailed picture with clear contrast and strong presence throughout the image ? the type of stable and consistent performance that becomes essential when recording images at HD specifications. For bright, realistic colors the it uses three 1/5-inch CCDs - one each for red, green and blue - for natural, vivid images. It's designed for friendly use. Focus Assist outlines in-focus image contours in color so you can easily tell which parts of the image are in or out of focus. A full array of effects is available so you can choose the right exposure or shutter speed automatically according to the scene you're shooting. Easily accessible via visual menu dial. Go creative with the Zebra Function that sisplays a striped pattern across highlight areas on the image, making it easier to manually set the exposure. Moving to HD MPEG2 video recording offers pro quality. With JVC GZ-HD3 in your hand, it's simple to be a pro for all you and your family's video camcorder needs - ready for viewing on your widescreen HDTV. Video Record Modes - FHD (1920x1080i, 26.6Mbps) / SP (1440x1080i, 19Mbps) / 1440CBR (1440x1080i, 27Mbps [CBR]) XP (1440x1080i, Max. 30Mbps, Ave. 26.6Mbps) Connections - USB 2.0/1.1, HDMI Out, iLINK Out, Component Video Out, S-Video Out, AV Out, SD/SDHC Memory Card Slot, DC In Still Image Res [4 - 3] 1440x1080 / 1024x768 / 640x480; [16 - 9] 1920x1080 Unit Dimensions - 3-1/4 x 3 x 6-1/8 (82mm x 75mm x 154mm) / About 20 ounces Includes battery and charger / Video and still transfer software Easily transfer video

JVC Everio GZHD3 3CCD 60GB Hard Disk Drive High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Review

EASY TO USE:
If you spend 10-minutes fooling around with the menu and all the buttons, you get the hang of it really quick. I will probably never use the advanced manual functions, but from the look of it manual function menus they seem easy to operate. I would, for this price, expect that there'd be a manual focus ring rather than a screen-based tool for manual focus. The buttons that you use the most like the zoom control, record button, and snapshot button, are in the right places. The camera overall is heavier than a SD camera but not bad at all. It feels sturdy and the battery doesn't add noticable heft to the device. Connecting to the TV with an HDMI cable is easy because it uses a real, full-size HDMI port and automatically activates it when you plug it in. This might be common to all camcorders, but you can use an HDMI hi-def TV as a huge viewfinder if you want... which potentially could be useful.

IMAGE CLARITY:
This is an HD camera, so naturally I expect the image quality to be very, very good. It is crisp but I feel as if it is a little bit grainy, especially in low light. I was not impressed by it at all and I'm highly considering returning it. The 3CCD system is supposed to reproduce the best colors but I felt as if reds and blues were muted - of course I'm no color theory-trained person. The first few times I used this were during a snow storm to record the beating we were getting here in Minneapolis and at an ice-skating rink. Not the two biggest color-rich environments but still I saw colors and details that the camera screen didn't see and to me, for an HD 3CCD camera, I feel it should have.

ZOOM & FOCUS:
The optical zoom operates at the right speed I'd say. The camera focuses fairly quickly, though I question why it doesn't go any faster. The big problem is, when you get passed approx. 6x it starts to lose its ability to focus up-close. So say you are sitting at your desk that is against a wall and you want to zoon in on the face of the person in the artwork on that wall. You zoom, zoom, zoom all the way to 10x which gets you close enough to fill the entire screen with the person's little face in the artwork. But it's blurry. The camera actually automatically backs-out the zoom until it is able to focus. I find that ridiculous. I zoomed in that far because I wanted to see the face of the person in the artwork fill the entire screen from the distance at which I was holding the camera. If you move the camera closer manually, it does a better job but is still obviously limited. I was dissapointed here.

LOW LIGHT:
I'm not expecting greatness in low light. I realize that top movie cameras even need lighting to capture people properly at light. But while at the ice skating rink, they turned the lights down low for that romantic feel (I suppose) and all of a sudden everyone's face disappeared and colors significantly reduced. It wasn't dark, it was amber-like; there was actually quite a bit of light remaining. I tried the night-mode which immediately increased the camera's ability to see light to where I think it should have been able to do w/out a setting but it became choppy and lost all use - the shutter speed slowed. Why in the world would I want the shutter speed to slow so much that the filming looks like I'm making a slasher movie - all choppy and traily. The only use of it is to plant the camera on a tripod and make people walk very slowly. It doesn't have that green-looking night-vision mode like Sonys do, which, even though its not in prestine color, allows you to see things happening at night, which is the point. The only time it does "well" at night is when there is a light bulb in the area and it picks up the light well from that for a certain distance away from the light source. Then it just sort of reverts back to its dismal low-light capability around the edges. I was dissapointed here.

Picture quality, focus, and low-light ability are like the kitchen and bathroom of a house. You can have just okay features otherwise, but if these features aren't great, you just don't have a good camera. I don't consider these features to be great, especially for a camera with an MSRP of over $1,000. I got it for $830 for Marcus Audio through Amazon.com. I think I'd be willing to pay $700 for it as it is.

I'll update you if I decide to return it (and let you know if Marcus Audio is a pain in the butt to return a product to). I need to see if the Sony or other brands are any better. I need something that is good in low light. I don't need the best colors at low-light, but I need to see faces. Problem is, trying to test these things without a salesperson looming over you at Best Buy or Circuit City is a pain because they never have power, they are usually screwed up because some kid took a billion pictures or videos with it and hit a bunch of buttons, or they are attached to an alarm system that keeps going off. Annoying. Hence my love of Amazon.com.

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