 Tiny camcorder... Big HDD... Easy functions... = 5 Stars! |
| Review Date: February 4, 2006 |
| Reviewer: johnb|aze, MI, USA |
Ok, I bought this for a Christmas present for my wife and she loves it. The first thing you notice is how small it is... I mean it's tiny!
When I first heard about these I checked for reviews on them and the two sites I found reviews on both had mediocre scores. Much of the fuss on thse sites had to do with the video quality of the still images.
I think many felt mislead b/c in the description it says you can select from image sizes of 1152x864. 1024x768, and 640x480. What we've found out is that even though you can select the 1152x864, 1024x768, and 640x480 the digital stills are only 640x480 because the two higher sizes make the images look bad but the 640x480 size looks super.
Honestly, I didn't buy it for it's digital camera capabilities (we love our Fugi e510) although it's super convenient to have this available albeit only at 640x480 b/c you can switch back and forth between stills and video very easily.
I can't comment on the Mac capabilities other than it seems a little harsh to give the unit 2 stars b/c "you" didn't read the packaging correctly.
I really don't know what all the fuss is about where the video quality is concerned. We haven't owned a camcorder since our last vsh-c which we were happy with as well. The videos at the highest setting looks great with very rich and true colors. The camera is eXtremely easy to setup and use from the time you take it out of the box until your first transfer over the very fast USB 2.0 connection.
Another great feature of this very small camera is the internal SD Card slot and the camera's ability to record both stills and video to this excellent removable media. It's very fast, super cheap (compared to others like memory stick and xD cards), and they already come in capacities up to 4gb.
I thought the SD Card would be soley for stills but was hoping the HDD would be removable, so this was a very nice surprise b/c like most PCs now-a-days our computers have the internal memory card readers so you can just pull the SD Card and pop it in your PC for editing, emails, burn to dvd, etc.
As far as dislikes go the only issue I had, which is really nitpicking, is that the buttons on the LCD are a bit small for my liking. I'm a pretty big guy though so this may not even be an issue for many of you.
I'm totally happy with this purchase! |
Excellent camera and high quality video
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| Review Date: March 21, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Polar Bear, New York, USA |
I bought this camera and I just love it. Forget about the issues some people mention here about low quality video, the trick is to change the camera settings for the environment you are recoding in. Just leaving it to the default settings do create grainy video in some situations, but change the settings and you will get gorgeous video quality. There is nothing wrong with the camera, it is all about the operator.
I love the internal harddrive. I did not want any disc or tape based systems, and this is perfect. Particularly convenient is it that this camera support SD cards, as my Casio digital camera uses that too --so I have a stack of them already that I now can use in both cameras.
The only thin missing is a nice case/bag for the camera. That and an extra battery or two is on top of my shopping list now.
I'll shoot my bride in my upcoming wedding, with this camera that is.... :-)
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great
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| Review Date: March 26, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Matthew W. Stockton, italy |
| this is a great camcorder the only problem i have is the battery life. other than that i love it. i have dropped it like 10 times and it still works. |
Love love LOVE it!
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| Review Date: August 11, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Morosco, Richmond, Virginia USA |
The 5 main reasons I purchased this camcorder:
1) Size. It's barely larger than a can of soda!!!
2) Hard drive. Nice not to not ever have to buy blank tapes or discs.
3) Ease of use. The controls are well designed. Had most everything figured out in no time.
4) Downloading to the computer is a breeze.
5) Reviews from other owners. Everyone seems to like it for the most part.
Very happy with my purchase!
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Pretty good camera for trips, you need a better battery though
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| Review Date: June 16, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Herge Watterson, Austin, TX USA |
The quality is awesome, the ergonomics is just super (the four way stick in the LCD for starters), the transfer capabilities are nice (just plug it in to ANY PC and it becomes an external hard drive with video files, although you have to rename the .MOD to .MPG), and the zoom/frame rate is great. (Upto 32X optical and .5-4000 fps - this is really good for shooting as you like).
For those who complain about the grainy stuff, try changing the frame rate yourself - lower frame rate for poorer lighting condition (so that the poor lighting gets registered on the CCD more slowly but rigidly), or change the white balance. I have had very little lighting problems , and that too only when shooting at really bad lighting conditions (in night for eg)...
Other than that, the camera is perfect for trips; it's amazing to see that the product turns out to be as good and heavenly as it was advertised.. for the first time.
Some personal gripes (from the stand point of a HDD camcorder), are that you can't record from a video source directly :D, and that you need to wait for 4 seconds before you can start recording after switching it on (it shows the same JVC animation every time, possibly to warm up the HDD meanwhile), and that you need to recharge it often if you are shooting it with the provided battery. If you can add 90$ more the 4 hour battery will make this cam one of the best. Also the digital stills are like crap; I mean 640x480 stills, worse than the ones in the cell phones.
But the overall thing is that you can shoot the videos and then transfer and burn them to your DVDs.. the problem is, with such a camcorder you would want to shoot everything that moves and is colorful and waste the 20GB soon enough...
I have owned a JVC VCR way back, and it was pretty good too, and that made my judgement about a industry first HDD camcorder from JVC... |
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