JVC GZ-HD300BU Compare, Reviews, Discounts

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Product: JVC GZ-HD300BU

List Price: $599.95
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Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3D5N4KQFIMLTJ In this review I expose off the camcorder itself, prove some video and pictures I took with the camcorder that note off the features, and discuss the software limitations.

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Body and Features

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First off, this camera is petite, especially considering the fact that it has a 60GB hard drive. The size rivals most SD card-only cameras. I seize it uses the same type of dinky shock-resistant hard drive found in MP3 players. The camera is even pocket-size if wearing loose fitting pants or pants with roomy extra pockets, like cargo shorts. Setup was simple. I inserted the battery, plugged in the power cord, and waited until the charging light stopped flashing. You simply start the LCD to turn on camera. There is no optical viewfinder. The LCD is sizable and intelligent, although not quite as obvious and interesting as some of the competition. There is a vertical touch-sensitive laser scroll strip on left of LCD and touch-sensitive soft buttons along the bottom. The laser scroll strip is very responsive and becomes quite intuitive after you acquire accustomed to it. Menu items are logically arranged and easily accessible. The most often musty items, such as video and sound preferences, are at top of menu, making them rapidly accessible. Scrolling through the menu is accomplished by simply sliding finger up or down laser strip. The laser strip can also be veteran to zoom the lens in addition to using the switch atop camera. The LCD cavity also houses the power-off button, a mini-HDMI port, component video out connector, a button that enables switching between micro-SD and internal HDD, and additional buttons for playing and exporting video. There is a composed portray snapshot button atop camera next to zoom toggle. The microscopic originate factor fit comfortably in my grip. The adjustable hand strap has a locking clasp that easily snaps initiate for speedily adjustments. It can also be extended and converted for consume as a wrist strap for carrying the camera. It also includes a runt remote with basic features.

Performance

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The camera powers on snappily and is ready to shoot in seconds. There is no noticeable lope waiting for the hard drive to walk up. The hard drive is soundless and is never interfered with recordings. The auto-focus performs okay in most circumstances. AF performance varies with distance and lighting. Shooting objects at tubby zoom and close-up (3 feet or less) seems more exciting for this particular auto-focus compared to other cameras I acquire. The face detection feature works well at identifying and tracking faces, even in cluttered shots, although it does have a difficult time keeping up with expeditiously inviting targets. Shooting footage of my kids, entertaining lickety-split about, caused the face detection to lose target several times, although reacquisition was fairly fast. Despite this fact, the hard drive-based camera is able to hold up and believe a decent level of detail in high-definition with constant hand/camera movement. Video shot in well lit conditions was obvious and challenging. The camera exhibited fine color balance with crisp proper colors, decent saturation, proper color reproduction, and edifying white balance. The camera also shoots in 24Mbps UXP (ultra high definition) mode. If shot in shimmering ideal conditions, the video in this mode is quite aesthetic, especially for such a small camera. Indoor and dimly lit video was not as nice. The video was remarkable softer and noticeably noisier. Colors were also more washed out and adversely affected by indoor lighting. White balance took a nosedive. My white walls took on the orange color cast by the overhead smart lighting. And the luminance of the lights caused unfavorable dazzling effects on the walls as well. To be unbiased, I was a bit surprised after viewing the very first footage I shot with the camera, which was indoors with medium lighting. Video shot in even lower light (a 32" television and one lamp) was really dreadful. The video was so grainy, I had to double-check to acquire clear I was shooting in high definition. For comparison, I checked older footage from a standard-definition mini-DV camera previously shot in the same plot with even less light and footage from a Panasonic SDR-H40 shot in similar light. The mini-DV footage was actually better, however, the Panasonic experienced a lot of the same issues as the JVC. The JVC was actually clearer in some instances and showed fewer video artifacts. So although indoor/dim light is not the greatest, I'd be hard-pressed to call it the worst. The camera does offer manual controls that can be customary to improve indoor performance. There is a button lawful on the LCD that allows switching between manual and fully automatic. I tried it and with a microscopic fiddling, significantly improved my indoor performance. If you're the fully-auto type, this camera will definitely force you out of that comfort zone if you want decent indoor performance. If that seems too daunting, then you will definitely want to employ the built-in light for all but the brightest indoor filming. One space where the camera excelled was sound. Sound was crisp and positive with no virtually no interference. The camera even did a very capable job of recording ambient sounds during outside filming one early morning. I heard every limited sound of nature. Birds chirping advance and far, insects, etc. Normal sounds are nice and obvious with no harshness. If you terminate the LCD, the camera will enter standby mode, conserving battery life. To turn camera off completely, you have to believe the power button for a few seconds. The 60 GB hard drive is fleet enough to withhold up with various recording conditions and offers more than sufficient area for an entire vacation worth of recorded memories. You won't have to wretchedness about running outrageous on dwelling unless you allow footage to obtain over time on camera. However, if you do manage to hurry vulgar on area, or simply win, micro SD is another option. The minimum specs suggest class 4 card or higher for normal video, class 6 minimum for UXP mode. This will back you avoid potential problems like drop-outs. Frankly, I wouldn't go with anything below class 6 for either mode. Unfortunately, class 6 micro-SD cards are not the most well-liked thing in the world to rep. In fact, I'm pleasing certain you can check most stores in your residence and they won't carry a class 6 micro-SD. They'll likely have Class 6 SD or SDHC cards however. I don't know why JVC opted not to go with the more favorite regular SD. Nonetheless, if you need additional storage, micro-SD is also an option, thus causing JVC to mark it a "hybrid" camera. Smooth shots are adequate but unremarkable. I wouldn't exhaust this as my principal level-headed camera but it works in a pinch. Shot Video/still footage is organized as thumbnails on the LCD when the user enters playback mode on the camera. The laser strip allows you to fast navigate through the various thumbnails to buy, play, and delete clips.

Exporting and Saving Footage

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The camera can export footage to both Mac or PC, external recording devices such as DVD/Blu-Ray/VHS recorder, or another camcorder. You can also play footage directly from camera on your television using the mini HDMI or component connections. The component cables are included, however the mini-HDMI is not. JVC also offers a notify to disk contrivance, but a Mac or PC should be sufficient. Exporting to a Mac is relatively easy enough with iMovie. In fact, there is no bundled software for Mac. The bundled Pixela Everio MediaBrowser HD software for Windows (only) is severely lacking. It is primarily ragged for extracting, backing up, and organizing files from the camera. I do like the fact that it neatly organizes your videos chronologically (reminds me a small of Picassa, only for videos) and makes it easy to accept specific footage. It also remembers which footage was previously backed up from camera and only imports the modern footage. Unfortunately, that's about all the wonderful I can say about it. Footage is backed up as AVCHD (H.264) files with a .mts extension on your computer. This will likely be a slight confusing to people who have conventional standard definition hard drive cameras or mini-DV in the past. You cannot browse the camera in Windows for footage like you can with a standard definition hard drive camera because Windows does not peruse the .mts format. When files are backed up to your computer via MediaBrowser, they appear as an unknown file type to Windows. Unfortunately, this also means neither Windows Media Player nor Windows Movie Maker search for the .mts file format as well, rendering them useless for viewing or editing. You will need an AVCHD compatible video editing application to manipulate and edit the files. MediaBrowser has a built-in viewer, however, viewing H.264 files will likely be a stuttering pixelated mess unless you have a distinguished video card and computer. That rules out most average desktops and laptops. I archaic the viewer on a fair decent laptop with a dedicated video card (256 MB RAM), Intel Centrino 2 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and 64-bit OS. The majority of the videos were watchable, however, determined videos with rapid movement or camera shake, were a bit choppy in spots. I also tried it on a mid-level laptop with integrated video using shared system memory. The videos were considerable worse, very choppy, and basically unwatchable (unless you were deliberately attempting to give yourself a headache) . MediaBrowser can convert the .mts files to Windows viewable video files, however, your choices are extremely dinky. You can either decide to convert to a exiguous (320X240) .mpg file, or export to iTunes for conversion to Quicktime video. Neither of which produced natty results. MediaBrowser also allows you to "edit" movies, however, this is petite to simply cutting out unwanted footage. Lastly, MediaBrowser allows users to burn the video files to a DVD disk, which can be performed with files saved on the PC or directly from the camera. For some people, this may be adequate. Not everyone wants to be Steven Spielberg. Most users unprejudiced want to shoot decent quality video, have the ability to bewitch footage of that crazy uncle (every family has one) embarrassing himself at the 4th of July cookout, and burn a DVD for watching later. This program will do that. It unprejudiced doesn't do remarkable else. Mac users on the other hand, have it great better off with iMovie. iMovie can begin, plan, and edit the AVCHD files. Mac users don't need any bundled software because they already have software that's heavenly great better than anything the camera makers are willing to bundle anyhow. If Windows users wish to go beyond the very puny capabilities of the bundled Pixela software, they will have to invest in some type of third-party AVCHD compatible video editing or conversion software like Corel VideoStudio, Sony Vegas Movie Studio (Platinum or Pro), Cyberlink PowerDirector, Adobe Premier Elements, etc.

Summary

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To sum things up, is this a perfect camera? No, especially if you compare it to some of the other models on the market. It doesn't have the "professional grade" quality lens or features of some of the competing models. In addition, indoor/low light full-auto performance is less than stellar, especially for an HD camera, and the included software for Windows users is elegant old. That being said, this camera does have two factors going for it that merit consideration: size and capacity. It's a consumer-grade camera, so let's discover at the loyal reason the average consumer buys a camcorder: to characterize and document memories. A lot of times, those memories are going to be on the go. A wise art teacher once told me the best camera in the world is the one you have with you when needed. This camera packs tons of storage into a itsy-bitsy body rivaling SD-only and similar sized videocams with far less flash memory. You can win this on vacation and feel confident it is runt enough to carry everywhere yet pleasant of capturing all your lope memories without the need to offload footage or add memory. Yes, there are larger distinguished higher quality alternatives, but smaller and lighter is sometimes the better trade-off. Anyone who has ever spent a few days chasing kids all over Disney World or a water park can believe observe to that fact.

In a nutshell, this camera shoots decent to very capable outside footage and average to terrible (depending on circumstances and whether you're willing to compensate in manual mode or exhaust the built-in light) indoor/low light footage. On the other hand, it's little enough that you're more likely to carry it with you to remove any footage at all. If you're looking for a runt pocket-size videocam with acceptable performance and a nice minute feature plot, this is worth a stare.

This camcorder records graceful video especially in well lit settings. The quality of the video rivals the HD you spy while watching your approved Television shows. There are many settings to settle from. Menu navigation is effortless. The laser touch scrolling is also very nice to spend. It gives this camcorder iphone like menu navigation functionality. The hard drive and SD Micro card can be mounted by a PS3 for speedy and easy play support. Smooth pictures are not perfect, but very halt. There is so mighty to treasure about this camcorder. I paid $699 at BestBuy last week. I have been testing it like crazy before the 14 day return policy expires. I will not be returning this product.

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