happy with it, October 10, 2005

I have been using this camcorder for almost two weeks now. And here are my impressions:

PROS:

A) This is a tiny camcorder and I can easily carry it in my pocket everyday.

B) It records directly on a 20GB harddrive. This is probably the most amazing feature of this camera. It has the following amazing benefits:

(1) A huge recording space

(2) Random access to recorded videos when browsing

(through a thumblist of videos)

(3) Super fast transfer onto your computer through USB 2.0.

(4) No tapes, no CDs, no DVDs to worry about while recording video.

(5) Facilitates easy archiving/organizing . For example, all the recorded files on the camera’s harddrive have “creation date”s as a part of their file information. When the camera is connected to your computer, you can sort all files by date and easily separate all recordings by date to different folders by simply selecting and dragging. (This is extra, but if you want to index and be able to search your video files, say with google desktop, simply enter a list of keywords in the file name about the contents of the file.)

(6) The harddrive on your camera can double as additional portable storage media- this is unlikely but If you wanted you could even install linux on it and carry with you an operating system on your camera.

C) Video quality is good for a consumer level video camera. The sound quality recorded through the internal microphone is good: i can hear the lectures I record very clearly and there is no annoying noise generated by the camera.

D) The charger that comes with this camera is very small. So you can carry that around as well and worry less about running out of battery.

CONS:

A) No mic jacks.

B) manual focus and light adjustments are done through menus.

C) The editing software that comes with it is limited.

D) The battery life is a mere hour(but you can buy a 3 hour battery for 70-80 dollars).

As with all camcorders, the still images shot with this camera are not at the level of quality you can get from a good still camera. It produces reasonable snapshots in well lit situations.

The video files recorded by this camera have a “.MOD” extension in their name. I replace “.MOD” with “.MPG” and most of my standard video viewing software automatically recognize the files.

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Great little camera, but night shooting a little grainy., November 24, 2005

I really like the long record time of this camera. I bought this camera for my trip to Europe, and it was great. It’s small, yet powerful. I could record off and on for days before having to dump the movies on my laptop. I would suggest getting a second battery, preferably the 3 hour. The 5 hour is almost the size of the camcorder itself, and made it heavier.

It was hard to find a case that is small enough for it, yet big enough to hold extra stuff like batteries. I bought the: CASE LOGIC TSC-4BLUE Sport Compact Camcorder Case. It doesn’t even look like a camcorder case, which I also like.

The software that comes with it takes some getting used to, but I think it works well.

Night recording is a little grainy, but not too bad. I love that it has a wide screen option. The stability software works well; the hand shaking is greatly reduced.

I don’t like the quality of the still pictures it takes, but I have a separate 8mp camera.

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works ok but…, December 12, 2005

By 

David John Hemmer (Buffalo, NY) – See all my reviews

  

This camera is easy to operate but when it comes to getting the footage on the camera turned into a DVD it is not so easy. I am a fairly comfortable and experienced computer user but not an expert. The software included has very inadequate instructions. For example it says “never plug the camera into the computer while the camera is turned on”. Later it says “don’t ever turn the camera on or off with it plugged into the computer”. Hmmm, this makes it awfully hard to transfer files! An email to JVC customer service received no reply!

Then the files come in multiple folders with odd names and extensions. The default file names are actually hexadecimal numbers! Good lord! How about using date and time instead?

It’s not clear if I can just save the .MOD files and delete the rest or not. Then when I burn files to DVD’s they invariably have skips, even though when I play them on my computer they look great. Maybe this isn’t the camera’s fault, maybe my DVD’s are cheap. Regardless i may find myself playing the camera back onto my TV and recording simultaneously onto VHS tapes if I can’t figure it all out!! At this point I have lots of nice videos on my hard drive with weird names and no DVD’s that I can play on my TV!

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Indoor picture quality not sufficient., May 11, 2006

First the good: this camera is small and very convenient in MANY ways and you don’t have the cost of tapes or mini CD’s. And if you are a little computer savvy, the file format issue that people are always complaining about really isn’t that big of a deal. I have Pinnacle Studio Plus 9.x (ie, with all the latest online updates to that version) and it handles the files just fine once you rename the file extension from .mod to .mpg. I’ve seen a lot of reviews here and elsewhere on the Internet that Adobe Elements Premiere 2.0 also handles the files just fine. I think ULead and a few others might as well. If you aren’t that computer savvy (and don’t necessarily want to be), then you may want to consider another camera just for this reason alone (unless perhaps you buy JVC’s external DVD burner drive and are happy with mostly unedited clips).

However, I have learned my lesson by putting too much trust in Amazon’s online reviews and discounting what is said in official reviews too much sometimes. I don’t think any of the reviews here mention this camera’s poor indoor (low-med light) picture quality… so I figured the official reviews of it I found elsewhere online were just being too picky. PC Magazine does a good job of describing the poor (especially low to medium light) picture quality in their Oct 17, 2005 review of this camera (you can find it by searching PCMag.com – search on “GZ-MG30″). I’m sure there are many other reviews noting the picture quality issue as well.

I am giving this a 2 rating (really s/b about 2.5, no option for that) because I feel the low to medium light picture quality issue is enough to sink this camera for many people… especially at this price (I paid 0). If it was only 0, then I would have given it 3 stars (for overall price/value). If you will be using it almost exclusively outdoors, then I could probably give it a begrudging 4 stars.

For my all-around purposes, I am dissatisfied with this camera and wish I could return it. If you don’t have good video quality, then nothing else really matters, does it? For some people, this camera might be just fine, but for the rest, I hope this review saves you from a costly mistake.

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Good product, bad recording format, January 7, 2006

By 

James G. Henderson “jimghenderson” (IA United States) – See all my reviews

  

The image quality, small form-factor, small size, large hard drive, and battery life make this a winner. However, the .mod files are a pain in the butt. The only thing that you can view these with is the PowerDVD viewer. In order to convert these files to AVI or MPEG I had to by something called Power Producer, and let the computer work for an hour to convert a large file to MPEG. That’s just wrong. The camara should have an option to compress to MPEG. This is similar to what the early Kodak digital camaras, such as the DC-120, did in saving images to the proprietary .kdc format. A royal pain.

Hopefully generation 2 will have MPEG conversion built in.

Anyhow, better and easier than converting from tape. A buy if you need a camcorder now.

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JVC Everio Hard Disk Camcorder, February 9, 2006

I waited a while before writing my review to really experience this camera. I have to say I love it. I went through some trial and error in the beginning but I really am enjoying the camera. I am not a professional videographer so this camera is fine for me. I have been taping all my son’s basketball games and after a few times, I finally found a sports mode which works great. The camera is a perfect size. The convenience of not using tapes is incredible. I would suggest downloading your film often. It takes 11 minutes to download about an hour worth of filming. Since the camera can hold over 30 hours of information, I would not suggest downloading all the material at once. I have not used the software that came with the camera. After reading other reviews on the internet, I decided to get Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 which I am very satisfied with. The camera records in .MOD format so you need this software to convert it to MPEG. Yes, it takes a while for the process to complete, but once it is done, it is ready to be burned onto a DVD. You can also save the MPEG file to watch your entire movie on the computer in Windows Media Player. I would strongly suggest having at least a gig of ram and alot of hard drive if you plan on filming alot and keeping the footage on your computer. Even though this is the first hard disk camera, I am very happy with it for my use. Anyone that wants to record family events, games, etc., and is computer literate, this camera is for you. Would I recommend it to a professional videographer? No. The film quality is the same as a mini-dv or hi-8 recorder. The menu buttons are small, but easy to use and simplified. If anyone has this camera and has some good tips for me, please email me [...].

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Sony Handycam is ok, April 14, 2010

I bought this with 3 basic needs, 1.I wanted something compact, 2. I wanted the capability to take pictures. 3. I wanted it to have a night vision light. You would think these 3 things would be easy to find in many cameras at a decent price range, but they were not! So how did this fair up? This camera is one of the most compact, even smaller than I expected. 2. It’s picture taking ability I was least impressed with. It was pretty grainy. 3. The night vision light was pretty weak, but hey I expected that for such a small camera. The battery life with the standard battery was about avg. 4 hrs. As far as working the camera, it was VERY simple, figured it out in 5 minutes w/o reading instructions, needless to say, there are VERY few menu screens, touch screen is kinda nice, but would also liked to have the capability to tape w/the viewfinder closed. All in all, i’m pretty happy w/the purchase, just don’t buy it if you want it to take good pictures, i’ve had phones that took clearer pictures.

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Unacceptable picture quality, poor focusing, March 9, 2010

By 

A. Agbay – See all my reviews

  

I bought this at a store, not Amazon. I read good reviews about earlier models, and was a bit hesitant to buy this camera because a few people said the video quality was bad. I took the risk, but they were right. The video (and digital picture) quality are unacceptable. Even in decent lighting, the pictures are very dark and grainy, as if they were taken by an old webcam. Even at high quality, there was no improvement. Also, the autofocus was very poor and did not adjust to fast-moving subjects. Don’t be fooled if you try it in a store; the LCD screen has great resolution (better than an iPod) but when you see the video on a computer screen (even when not blown to full size) or on a projection screen, the video quality is so bad. It looks average on a traditional TV. And the zoom mic also does not capture sound effectively. I was going to use this for business videography, but it would have been embarrassing to use this camcorder. I suspect similar camcorders (i.e. 1/6 CCD) may have similar inferior quality. The size, zoom quality, and touch screen might be nice features, but my Canon A570 digital camera from four years ago took better video.

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Poor video quality–overall not good, March 10, 2010

I purchased this camera at a store, believing the SONY brand name and previous good reviews about similar Sony camcorders. There are several flaws to this product.

Cons

1. Picture quality is very poor, Indoor and outdoor pictures in good light appear with a bluish tint all over. If you wear a white /gray cloth it appears bluish on video. Like wise the sunlight coming inside your house through window /blinds all appears light blue!! Even with good lighting the quality of images are very bad, lacks sharpness, This in comparison to my old Panasonic PV GS120 is not even close to true color. If you view the pictures on a TV screen it will definitely appear lacking the sharpness. If you are transferring the video to computer using the supplied software it appears very blurry and grainy.

2. There is no way you can charge the battery when camcorder is in use even if there is a spare battery because the battery charging is done hooking up the AC adapter to the camcorder! This seems really stupid. Sony could have made a battery slot on the AC adapter to do this.

3. There is no separate viewfinder. So if the LCD is broken- everything is gone.

4. Audio quality does not seem to be that good but average.

5. I can not find the resolution of the camera for still shots, nothing is mentioned in the manual either. You can not shoot a still picture while recording the video, you have to capture it from the video shots already made. Yea the resolution does not matter in that case.

6. Battery life approximately less than an hour

7. The LED for lighting seems silly

Pros

1. Small size, you can carry in Pants pocket

2. Provision to use SDHC card instead of the “Sony’s own” memory stick duo only. I have not used one yet though.

3. LCD is very clear and sharp (good resolution), and it responds well to the touch.

4. Video transfer is quick and easy once the basic Sony software is installed. I would use some other software to edit it though.

5. 80 GB storage space is great

6. The Sony software has a calendar to see events on a chronological order, that looks great if you are time conscious about the video

Overall I am not satisfied with this camcorder. I will return it soon.

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