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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