Aside from its budget price and high-powered zoom, another potentially appealing feature of this camcorder is its aforementioned wide-screen support. Unfortunately, the camcorder's 4:3 LCD and viewfinder make it a little awkward to use. The GR-D370 records 16:9 video with the corresponding wide angle of view, but it displays on the LCD as very distorted 4:3 footage. It looks fine when played back on a widescreen TV, but standard TV users will probably miss the letterboxing effect we've come to expect from most widescreen camcorders.
The GR-D370's other big quirk is its electronic viewfinder. Rather than automatically switching on when the LCD is closed, you must extend the eyepiece to enable it. Even when the power switch is on, the camcorder sleeps when both the LCD and the eyepiece are closed. It's quite a nuisance until you get used to pulling the eyepiece out before you close the LCD.
As with most budget camcorders that have small CCDs, video quality leaves something to be desired. Details are softened to something approaching fuzzy oblivion. Videos shot outdoors are washed out, while indoor videos suffer from noisy, blocky blotches.
At less than $400, the JVC GR-D370US faces a variety of competition from budget camcorders such as the Sony Handycam DCR-HC26 and the Canon ZR600. We'd like to say it that rises above the fray to make it the value proposition it's supposed to be, but unfortunately, there's just not enough here to recommend it over other camcorders in its class.
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JVC GR-D370:
