JVC GRD30 MiniDV Camcorder with 2.5" LCD and 16x Optical Zoom

Great quality especially for the price.

..... I love it. The picture and sound quality are great I dont think I could ask for more.

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 ...

JVC GRD70 MiniDV Camcorder with 2.5" LCD 16x Optical Zoom and SD/MMC Card Slot

Not as good as the specs would lead but good for the price

For the price I would say that the camera is worth it.
There's not much else to choose from in the price range.

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 ...

JVC GRD750 MiniDV Camcorder with 34x Optical Zoom

Excellent Camcorder for the money

This Camcorder offers high value for those needing a casual use camcorder. I find this light-weight cam is well made delivering decent quality video and is easy to operate- with both auto and manual modes. It does suffer from the limitations most if not all budget 1/6 CCD .68mp camcorders have. It struggles in low-light (bumping up the exposure and/or adjusting white balance helps) and playback on a high resolution or a big screen monitor with only .68mp isn't always flattering. Playback on more normal size screens (like my 27" set) are fine. Outdoors and in regular lighting situations this camera performs very well. Indoor quality suffers without enough light and I usually use manual mode to improve things.



From the couple of other posts there may be quality control issues. I have none and it seems to be well made. There are other sites with almost universally positive personal reviews so hopefully JVC has addressed any issues.



It only has a firewire (no USB) so PC users must have a firewire port if they want to edit. I use a mac and have no issues using iMovie.



Likes: OIS 34X zoom 16x9 or 4x3 modes battery life (about 2 hours) manual control size build quality price.



Dislikes: No DV cable (does anybody include one?) no software focus issues with low-light and occasionally at the long end of zooms sub-par audio.



Overall I find the D750 to be a very predictable camcorder offering good quality videos at an almost steal of a price. I'd recommend this camcorder to anyone and think it would be a perfect learning tool for someone getting started or those who travel frequently (small size) or perhaps have higher loss risks (low price).More detail ...

JVC GRDVL720U MiniDV Digital Camcorder with 3.5" LCD and 8MB SD Memory Card

What a deal!!

I got this Camcorder on a Goldbox deal and after all was said and done it was hundreds less than any other store! The camcorder is great I had to purchase a firewire adapter for my computer but it was worth the additional investment. I upgraded to Windows XP Plus! digital edition and found video editing was simple and the camcorder was completely compatible. The battery that it comes with does not last very long (about an hour without the light on). I invested ...and purchased a longer life battery. The still photo function was easy to use but the quality was less that 1 megapixel. Overall a great camcorder!!!More detail ...

JVC GRD93 MiniDV Digital Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom

recorded camera noise

I just purchased this JVC GRD93 camera elsewhere and recorded my first short video on a new JVC tape. While the camera itself didn't seem to make a lot of noice the camera noice recorded on the tape was very annoying during playback. JCV customer service was of no help. I'm sending the camera back.More detail ...

JVC GR-D250 MiniDV Camcorder w/25x Optical Zoom

A nice piece of work from JVC

Of course like any person who spends 300 bucks on something you expect it to perform admirably while knowing full well that there are more expensive models out there. This little DV camera does quite the job. Starting from the packing all the way down to the technical features. In a world were you get less and less JVC seems to have done pretty well. Instructions for the camera come in 3 languages all of the peripherals; lens cap multi-voltage power plug RCA cables and straps are actually well designed and usable. The camera itself is quite user friendly and intuitive. After opening and sorting the contents I had the camera up and recording in less than 5 minutes.



Pros:



1. Very fast rewind and fast forward.

2. Light weight and compact.

3. Clear display that you can turn and flip in almost every direction

4. Great zoom features and very good recording quality.



Cons:



1. No DV tape included. I was smart enough to pick up a two pack at the same time.

2. If you have big hands it may be a little hard to manipulate.

3. Although I didn't buy a tripod it looks as if you can't eject the tape while the camera is attached.



Would I buy it again? Absolutely.More detail ...

JVC GR-D370 MiniDV Camcorder w/32x Optical Zoom

Excellent little camera

This is the first camcorder I've ever owned. I saw it demonstrated on the shopping channel and eventually went shopping myself for an equal good price. It's a 2006 model and has only been around for a few months. After having it just a few days so far...I'd say so far so good! I'd have to say it's fairly simple to operate and offers a great many bells & whistles for the price. The 32x optical zoom is what sold me and it works like a charm. The digital zoom extends that to 64x and 800x. I have yet to try out the "super-zoom". The camera features stabilization control but I'll admit its still tough to keep it steady even at 32x! The other features include night vision live slow an automatic focusing control with auto white balance etc... and can operate as a digital (still) camera as well. If I was to make design changes it would be to have some of the operating controls FF - STOP - etc on the outside of the unit instead of having to open the LCD viewfinder to operate many of the basics. The only operational button within easy reach is to release the pause mode & record from standby. Actually the button to take "a picture" is right there too.



Battery power is ok I guess. The rechargeable pack (included) allows up to 90 min on average. To upgrade to a 3 hr or 7 hr battery will cost you!! No SD memory card included either.



So in the end if you compare the features and prices of JVC's competitors I'd say they did pretty well with this one.More detail ...

JVC GRDVP9 Digital Ultra Compact Camcorder

Amazing mini camcorder

This camcorder is an amazing piece of engeineering. The image quality is quite clear on the video as well as still pictures that are taken. The LCD screen is very clear and the feature set is quite impressive. The menus could be a little more intuitive but over time you get used to their placements. Battery life tops out at around 90 minutes or so so I do recommend getting an extended battery for it.

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 ...

JVC GR-D870 MiniDV Camcorder with 35x Optical Zoom

Great "Bang for the Buck"!

Excellent features: slow motion 16:9 widescreen instant battery level status instant display of tape time remaining 35X Optical zoom is much more than one could actually use plus 800x digital which you'll never use takes still pictures while you record on SD card auto light feature lots of functions like white balance auto image stabilization you can take cool video like sepia 8MM type etc;



I've only used it for home video like b-day's family dinners baby showers etc. It's given me excellent video looks great on my HD tv.. thought it's not HD video but good enough.. plus i'm not sure if i wanna see my family in HD that close up!



Of course it doesn't look so good in low light but that's expected of any camcorder in this price range.. BTW did I mention the battery will outlast the 60 min tape!



All in all.. I would recommend this over any Canon or Sony MiniDV Standard Definition camcorders! Hands down it is the best bang for you buck!More detail ...

JVC GRD90 MiniDV Camcorder with 3.5" LCD 16x Optical Zoom 8MB and MMC

Almost Perfect...For The Price

The JVC GRD90 is overall a pretty good MiniDV camcorder. If you already know a lot about camcorders skip to paragraph 2. If you are new to this area continue reading below.

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 ...