Thursday, October 18, 2007
DigitalTrends Reviews the JVC EVERIO GZ-HD3
Posted by Jason Dunn in "HARDWARE" @ 05:00 AM
"After years of pretty stagnant camcorder sales of around 4-5 million per year, it’s expected close to 20 percent more will be purchased in 2007. To this observer the reason is pretty simple—HDTV. People are buying flat-panel televisions by the millions and really enjoy HD programming and higher-quality DVDs on widescreens. Standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio video really doesn’t cut it anymore—especially on a pretty flat panel display. Enter the many high-def camcorders now widely available. Walking into a big box retailer recently I saw over a half-dozen on view along with many less-expensive SD camcorders. This trend will continue as HD camcorder prices continue to drop to more reasonable levels. It really is a HD World, as many Japanese companies have hyped for the last decade. A good example is the new JVC GZ-HD3, a hard disk based HD camcorder that’s the less expensive sibling to the GZ-HD7 released earlier this year. We weren’t too thrilled with that one, given its high price ($1,699 USD list) and so-so video quality. Along comes this new one for $400 USD less. Instantly you might think this is a much better deal but looks can be deceiving. Let’s give it a workout and see if it belongs on your shopping list…
The JVC EVERIO looks like a solid HD camcorder with enough storage to capture five hours worth of video - not bad at all! Like most of the other cameras on the market, it's limited to a 10x optical zoom - I wonder when we'll see cameras this size bust into the 15x or 20x range? Although without optical image stabilization - a major oversight in my opinion - that extra zoom would probably result in jittery footage unless the camera was mounted on a tripod. Hard drive-based cameras definitely have their advantages, but this one may not be the best one out there.
The JVC EVERIO looks like a solid HD camcorder with enough storage to capture five hours worth of video - not bad at all! Like most of the other cameras on the market, it's limited to a 10x optical zoom - I wonder when we'll see cameras this size bust into the 15x or 20x range? Although without optical image stabilization - a major oversight in my opinion - that extra zoom would probably result in jittery footage unless the camera was mounted on a tripod. Hard drive-based cameras definitely have their advantages, but this one may not be the best one out there.
