Product Description
JVC GR D770 - camcorder - Mini DV
Product Type: Camcorder - widescreen
Dimensions (WxDxH): 2.4 in x 4.5 in x 3.7 in
Weight: 14.5 oz
Webcam Capability: Yes
Media Type: Mini DV
Supported Flash Memory: MultiMediaCard SD Memory Card
Analog Video Format: NTSC
Sensor Resolution: 680 Kpix
Effective Sensor Resolution: Video: 340 Kpix - Still: 0.3 Mpix
Shooting Modes: Digital photo mode
Lens Aperture: F/2.0-4.8
Focus Adjustment: Automatic manual
Focal Length: 2.3 mm - 78.2 mm
Optical Zoom: 34 x
Digital Zoom: 800 x
Image Stabilizer: Electronic
Microphone: Microphone - built-in - stereo
Viewfinder: LCD - 0.33" - color
Display: LCD display - TFT active matrix - 2.7" - color
Supported Battery: 1 x Li-ion rechargeable battery ( included )
Customers also search for: Discount JVC GR-D770 - Camcorder - Widescreen - 680 Kpix - Optical Zoom: 34 x - Supported Memory: MMC SD - Mini DV Buy JVC GR-D770 - Camcorder - Widescreen - 680 Kpix - Optical Zoom: 34 x - Supported Memory: MMC SD - Mini DV Wholesale JVC GR-D770 - Camcorder - Widescreen - 680 Kpix - Optical Zoom: 34 x - Supported Memory: MMC SD - Mini DV 0046838028571 GRD770US Camcorders
Product Description
JVC GR D770 - camcorder - Mini DV
Product Type: Camcorder - widescreen
Dimensions (WxDxH): 2.4 in x 4.5 in x 3.7 in
Weight: 14.5 oz
Webcam Capability: Yes
Media Type: Mini DV
Supported Flash Memory: MultiMediaCard SD Memory Card
Analog Video Format: NTSC
Sensor Resolution: 680 Kpix
Effective Sensor Resolution: Video: 340 Kpix - Still: 0.3 Mpix
Shooting Modes: Digital photo mode
Lens Aperture: F/2.0-4.8
Focus Adjustment: Automatic manual
Focal Length: 2.3 mm - 78.2 mm
Optical Zoom: 34 x
Digital Zoom: 800 x
Image Stabilizer: Electronic
Microphone: Microphone - built-in - stereo
Viewfinder: LCD - 0.33" - color
Display: LCD display - TFT active matrix - 2.7" - color
Supported Battery: 1 x Li-ion rechargeable battery ( included )
Customers also search for: Discount JVC GR-D770 - Camcorder - Widescreen - 680 Kpix - Optical Zoom: 34 x - Supported Memory: MMC SD - Mini DV Buy JVC GR-D770 - Camcorder - Widescreen - 680 Kpix - Optical Zoom: 34 x - Supported Memory: MMC SD - Mini DV Wholesale JVC GR-D770 - Camcorder - Widescreen - 680 Kpix - Optical Zoom: 34 x - Supported Memory: MMC SD - Mini DV 0046838028571 GRD770US Camcorders
The battery it comes with is good for over an hour which easily covers a 60 minute tape. Thats better than the default battery you get with a lot of other camcorders which are often in the 30-45 minute range. It lacks the remote control and USB/memory card you get with the 2 higher (and more expensive) models but thats fine by me. It can still take stills but its not a function I have any interest in. If I want good stills I have a 2.2MP Kodak for that. Pretty much everyone knows by now that you dont get good stills off a camcorder just as you dont get good video off a still cam. If its an included secondary feature then fine but dont expect the quality you get with a more dedicated device. I got this for the video and its a wonderful thing.
It doesnt do too well in really low light of course I wasnt really expecting otherwise. I have yet to ever see a digital camcorder that actually does great with inadequet light. It has a night mode which does greatly increase the lighting but it drops the frame rate terribly. It has another "backlight" function that can be handy for less than optimal lighting. But in reasonable-good lighting you get wonderfull piture quality. It has a nice selection of transition effects built in I still have yet to explore them all. The 16x optical zoom is cool. Its more than enough for me. The size of the unit is nice not too big and not too small - similar in shape/size to the canon ZR series only this thing is of higher quality than the canon counterparts especially where audio is concerned.
Now Im sure this isnt the ideal model for everyone in every situation but for the price you'd be hard pressed to get this kind of quality elsewhere. There are $$$$ models that cant compare to this so Im happy with the buy. Its pretty easy to use. Not too much of a learning curve. Not so many buttons that you get lost. Manual/automatic choices. Yeah its a nice piece of work and I was surprised at how affordable it was. I would recommend this to most people.More detail ...
Pros:
Cheap lightweight small 16x zoom.
Cons:
Grainy especially in low light menus and features could
be better still picture worthless.
Details:
The video in low light is grainy. Even in bright outdoor
light the image shows grain. There are 3 gain options
-- none AGC and Auto-A. Using none there is little grain
but colors are washed. AGC is unacceptably grainy and
Auto-A is a little grainy but colors are bright. I've been
shooting in Auto-A.
Stills are not only noisy but resolution is poor. I feel
the packaging is very misleading in this regard. The camera
advertises a 680k CCD and 1024x768 still resolution. The
1024x768 still image according to the manual is actually shot
in 720x480 resolution and interpolated upwards. That's actually
only using half the available CCD pixels. They should have
used the full 680k for the 1024x768 image. This pretty much
means you will get the best results using 640x480 mode and
interpolating yourself (interpolating 720x480 to 1024x768 is
lossy and there are better enlarging methods than what they
use).
The menus are too complicated for the features they control.
I would like to know how the arpature shutter speed and gain
are being controlled and control these myself for the best
image quality. The automatic settings for each of these don't
do the best job. It's also not easy to get to these settings
on the fly -- the single wheel control and menus are difficult
to traverse while shooting.
The image stabilization works well in bright light. It doesn't
seem to work as well in Auto-A (auto arpature) setting for some
reason. This is a problem because Auto-A produces a better
image than AGC or no-gain. I'd like to use Auto-A and get
good image stabilization too.
Night alive is almost useless. Basically it slows the shutter
speed way down to capture more light. When you use it you get
nothing but motion blur. I wish they had manual controls of the
shutter arpature and gain because this would allow me to
produce a better nighttime image. I did use the Night Alive
setting to take a still photo in the dark using a tripod and
this produces the least grain of any mode.
Compared to the 30U and 90U models -- I'd almost recomend the
30U since the still quality of the 70u and 90u is not good.
The 90U has a larger LCD screen but the size of the 30u and
70u is good enough. The 90u comes with an 8mb memory card
but if you are going to use the memory card you will buy a
larger one anyways and end up not using the 8mb card. The
70u comes with a remote control which I will use (so I can
be in the video -- like at Christmastime)
Wishlist:
1) Use the full CCD for stills.
2) Manual shutter speed (min currently is 1/60th but if it
could be set to 1/30th this could vastly improve indoor
stills and video. 1/15th could work well for extreme dark
lighting.) Along this vein an arpature and a shutter
priority mode would be nice.
3) Progressive scan video.
4) Direct access controls to arpature shutter and gain -
the menus are too difficult to fumble through and the
naming in the menus are not easy to figure out what they
do.
5) Titles and ***Date/Time*** capability on firewire capture.
6) Use full CCD for video capture -- this would disable the
stabilization but could produce a brighter more
accurate image.More detail ...
One more thing according to the box it works with Macintosh MacOS 9 only. However it works perfectly fine on MacOS X 10.2. This camcorder is definitely worth the investment.More detail ...
1--If you're looking for a video camera that you can use to edit video on your PC or MAC then you need a digital camcorder that is IEEE-1394 compliant. You don't have to worry about remembering that though...an easy name to remember is FireWire. This peticular camcorder meets those standards. Another thing you want to look for is Pixels...in this case the higher the number the higher the quality of the camera. This camera has decent video quality. However especially when indoors this camera's video image can get a bit grainy. If you are looking for a camera that has really good quality I'd recommend something like the JVC GR-DV500. If you are simply looking for a digital video camera that will record Sally's band concert then this is the camera for you. (Proceed to Paragraph 3)
2--this camera is IEEE-1394 compliant making it suitable for video editing. However it only has 680000 pixels (0.68 megapixels) so if you are looking for a high-quality camcorder I'd recommend shopping around for a camera with a least 1.0 megapixels. The DV port accepts both input and output which will probably come in handy at some point in time. This is not a professional camcorder so I do not recommend buying this is you are a professional videographer. If your budget is limited however this will do for your basic fliming and editing needs. (Proceed to Paragraph 3)
3--Another great feature that pros and amatures alike will enjoy is the big 3.5 inch screen. You might be thinking '3.5 inches? That's tiny!'...however you'll come to find that 3.5 inches is quite large for a camcorder LCD screen. Overall this is a pretty good digital video camera it's only major flaw being that some indoor shots may look incredibly bad. This camcorder is almost perfect...for the price.More detail ...
