JVC Everio GZ-MG50
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"OMG Why has it taken so long?" on by jamsf
Pros: HARD DRIVE BASED CAMERA!
Cons: POSSIBLY the battery
Summary: OMG I cant believe it's taken this many years for someone to DO this! Who CARES that you may have to be reasonable about what you dump on your hard drive, and burning them to DVD not REQUIRED, dump them to CD for the ones you WANT to keep. This is an AMAZING concept, that will probably be stillborn because the tape producers wont be getting any long term MONEY out of it!
Ok so there MIGHT be battery life problems? Bah, WHO could possibly make a battery to last long enough to cover that? Carry a couple extras with you, HOW much video footage could you POSSIBLY want? Come ON CNET you guys should be raving over the possibility of this camera!
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"C- for effort" on by sxy2385
Pros: hard drive
Cons: second-rate stabilizer and low-light performance
Summary: Yes it's small and the hard drive idea is great. However, why don't companies like JVC just choose better options of specs for their new products, right at the start? I'm talking about relatively simple things like:
1. optical stabilizer instead of electronic
2. 1/3" CCD instead of 1/4.5"
3. variable bit rate instead of fixed
JVC wants the Everios to succeed and build up a good user base don't they?
For their crippling effort, I think I'll wait for Sony and Panasonic to come up with a hard drive based camcorder but with their better optics and quality reputation. -
"Battery life info from JVC's website" on by skon
Pros: Several battery options increase usability of camera
Cons: Higher capacity batterys are almost as big as Video Cam. Included battery is only 1hr!!!!!
Summary: I'm pasting whats at JVC's site about the battery life below. The included battery is only good for 1 hour!!! This in my mind nesesitates one or two spare batterys of larger capacity being something you want to include with the inital purchase.
BN-VF707
1h.
BN-VF714
2h. 5min.
BN-VF733
4h. 50min. Note: Listed times are approximate. Shooting times are based when the temperature is approx. 68°F/20°C, without use of zooming. -
"Great Camera for Most People" on by carlosglz
Pros: Gobs of high quality recording time, easy to share video with friends and family on dvd.
Cons: Quality degrades in low-low light, but if you comfortable tweaking the shutter settings in the menu you can get around all that.
Summary: Finally! I have been waiting for a video camera that takes good quality video (not mpeg4) and does not use tapes. Everyone that I know has a minidv/digital8 camera, and when they shoot something, the last we all ever see of it is when they hook up the camera to the tv at the end of the day. After that, no copies, no sharing, most of the time no one ever sees the video again. The whole point of recording memories is that you can watch them easily whenever you want and be able to share them with friends and family whenever you want.
First I have to say this is my first camcorder ever (yes, I have been waiting 30 years for this camera). I have used plenty of other camcorders that people have let me borrow, but this is the first camcorder I ever buy for myself.
I went to Cancun two weeks ago and I made the decision that I had to buy a camera for the trip. This camera was a great choice and I love it! I didn't have to lug along my digital still camera, because the everio takes 1152x864 pictures as well which is more than enough for me (for those out there that think they need 6 megapixel pictures, wake up and smell the marketing).
When I got back from my trip, I decided to sit down and get everyone a copy of the video. I was a little apprehensive because I work in advertising and I know how cumbersome and slow it can be to work with large video files if you don't have a computer specifically made for that task...I decided to use my home computer because I didn't want to wait (2.6ghz celeron with 512mb of ram). I didn't really like the DVD authoring software that came with it (seemed to complicated and unintuitive), so I used the Nero VisionExpress that came with my Nero Ultimate Edition software. It was soooo easy to get this done. Within one hour I had already completed a dvd with all the footage from trip, with thumbnail menus and chapters automatically set for each time the camera stopped. I shot some footage of tropical fish in the water at Cozumel and I used that as the video background underneathe all of the menus. On a separate DVD I also created a compilation of photo slideshows (with music) from all the photo cameras everyone took (including pictures taken with my Everio).
I had the software "burn to hard disk" so I could make as many copies as I wanted of both dvds. I made 5 copies and was totally done with the project in 2 hours. This would not have been possible without this camera, capturing from any other minidv camera or other video source would require hours upon hours of video conversion to dvd compliant mpeg2. But since this camera shoots in mpeg2, that is not a factor.
I love this camera and highly recommend it for most people. If you are one of those videophiles that worries about the number of lines of resolution of your video, or how many ccd chips your camera has, then this camera is probably not for you. If you want great looking video and the convenience of being able to share it EASILY, CHEAPLY AND QUICKLY then definitely check out this camera.
On another note, I have used the software that came with the camera to convert video clips to quicktime, windows media video and realvideo. This is very useful for emailing clips, posting them on websites, or putting them inside your windows media center (or other home theater pc) for easy access.
Also, when getting this camera, be aware that there are two models/versions out there that only do 640x480 pictures...I almost made that mistake. -
"Panacea of portability and editablility. Huge time saver when editing." on by ICU812
Pros: Very small and lightweight. Shoots in MPEG 2, mounts as a harddrive.
Cons: No accessory shoe or connection for external mic. No optical antishake.
Summary: I told a friend about 2 years ago that the perfect camcorder for me would be one that used a harddrive instead of tape. Well here it is! No longer do I have to carry extra MiniDV tapes. No longer do I have to sit through an enormously long real time capture to my computer to an AVI file. No longer do I have to sit through an enormously long conversion from AVI to MPEG2 for storage and burning to DVD (which requires MPEG2). This little camcorder shoots in MPEG2. I can drag and drop the files straight to my computer or I can use my favorite editing software (Studio 9), and edit straight from the camcorders hard drive! Here's the key: The video files on the camcorder are file extention .mod. But they are really MPEG2 files! All you have to do is rename the file extentions to .mpg. Then your favorite editing software will be able to edit the files while they are still on the camcorder. Remember, save your edited video to your computer, not to the camcorder. Don't change the video itself on the camcorder if you intend to view it from there. To view these videos while still on the camcorder you must change the file extentions back to .mod.
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