REVIEW: JVC Everio GZ-HD300
May 29, 2009 by admin
I am a member of the Amazon Vine Voices program. Every month Amazon sends me a few products that are new or coming soon to market to review on their site. This month I was sent a JVC Everio GZ-HD300 High-Def Camcorder to review.
The JVC is a competitively priced camera that is certainly adequate but far from the best camera in the marketplace.
1080p?
Before I get into other features, it’s important to note that this is not a 1080p camcorder! The marketing materials both on the box and here at Amazon indicate this camera shoots 1080 60p. It doesn’t. It’s 1080i running at 29.97 frames per second. While this shoots 60 /fields/ per second, it’s not the holy grail of 60 /frames/ per second. The product manual does indicate the correct output resolution, but it’s unfortunate that JVC is misleading customers into thinking this is a true 1080p device.
FEATURES
The JVC Everio is definitely smaller and lighter than most of the cameras in its product range even with a 60 gig hard disk crammed in. JVC is “checking all of the boxes” for a good consumer camera, including facial recognition, 24 megabit maximum recording (which is unfortunately off by default), and a hard disk that records about five hours of footage at the highest quality setting.
The biggest omission, something that JVC is not alone in omitting, is a microphone port. It just infuriates me to see this becoming more of the norm for consumer cameras, dooming users to a lifetime of lousy audio. Good audio is such an important part of good video, and the lack of even the option to bring in an external microphone is a real deal breaker.
OPERATION
My real issue with this camera, despite all of its features, is that it does nothing particularly well. JVC opted for a touch sensitive “laser touch” glowing navigation pad that is difficult to use with menu options that don’t make much sense. For example, the menu description for the built in stabilizer reads “image blurred need to reduce camera shake…” Huh? I was equally confused by an “auto manual” icon that doesn’t tell me what exactly it is I am manually controlling. There are no manual white balance, focus, aperture, or shutter controls that I could find.
The hard drive is responsive and relatively quiet. I predict this will likely be the last year for hard drive based recorders given how inexpensive large flash drives are becoming. Avoid buying this for kids who are rough on their equipment, as hard drives do not fare as well as flash drives do when getting knocked around.
The camera touts a bunch of ‘one touch’ features that ease the uploading of video from the camera back to a computer as well as YouTube. The problem is that none of these features work on a Mac. The camera does, however, interface perfectly with iMovie and Final Cut Pro.
IMAGE QUALITY
For a 2009 model year camera I was extremely disappointed with the output quality. I ran test footage side-by-side with last year’s Canon HF-100 in a naturally lit room. The older camera far exceeded the JVC’s output. The JVC was overly grainy with very flat colors. Image quality improved outdoors in good light, but still not as good as the Canon.
CONCLUSION
This is a competitively priced camera that is adequate but not great. There are definitely better models out there, but none that have this amount of storage capacity and features in this small a form factor at this price.
Consider the JVC if you don’t care about manual controls, shoot mostly in good light, and don’t need a microphone port. If you see yourself becoming a more serious videographer, look elsewhere. You will quickly outgrow it.
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I tested the Everio before deciding on the comparable Sony. The extra money was well worth the extra image quality. The Sony also took better still images, even at the high end of the zoom.
You definitely can't go wrong paying a little bit extra for better quality. The lack of manual controls on this thing really reduces the quality of image that can come out of it.
I am a huge fan of the Canon cameras. I was sent a new HFS10 which I will be reviewing over the weekend. It is outstanding, can't wait to play with it more tonight.
No sir, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!!!
1080/60i displays as 1080/30p or 1080/50p depending on the TV. Shame on you for posting ignorant commentary without first understanding what it is you're saying. Do the math.
Further, most consumer camcorder devices record at 1080i and rely on the TV to de-interlace the i signal to Progressive. Get your facts straight.
I stand by my review. If you took the time to read it (which you clearly
did not) I stated the camera records video at 1080i which it does. I also
stated that the marketing materials for the camcorder may lead some to
believe that the camera records video at 1080p. It does not.
It is not true that all televisions upconvert to progressive format. In
fact my older Panasonic CRT is a 1080i device. Not 1080p. Not 720p.
Regardless, the point is irrelevant – the camera's recording format is what
I questioned, not what some television might do with the video.
Don't come on my site with insulting commentary when you don't take the time
to actually read what's written. Thanks.
-Lon
“I stand by my review. If you took the time to read it (which you clearly
did not) I stated the camera records video at 1080i which it does. I also
stated that the marketing materials for the camcorder may lead some to
believe that the camera records video at 1080p. It does not.”
[EVERIO]
A) Up until only very recently, the HDV Consortium (Composed of JVC, the developer of HDV I might add, SONY, SHARP, amongst others) did not include 1080p in the HDV standard. Your point is moot because only VERY EXPENSIVE professional cameras can record at 1080/30p, let alone the film industry standard 1080/24p HD camcorders.
B) At this point, NO CONSUMER camera records at 1080p, this however does not mean the camera is not a 1080p camera. This is where I take issue with your commentary. The video is recorded at 1080/60i, which really just means the odd lines are scanned once 30x and the even lines are scanned once 30x = 60 fields interlaced per second. So while 60 fields are scanned per second, the screen is scanned twice. Since with Progressive scanning, you're scanning in sequence (Not odds and evens), when the signal is de-interlaced, this translates into 30 fields per second.
Bottom line, if you connect this camcorder to a 1080p TV or burn the data to a BD, you will be looking at 1080p video upon playback. The camera uses very sophisticated algorithms to de-interlace, NOT “Upconvert” as you incorrectly stated, the video so the video outputed is up to 1080p. So what you're saying is moot in my opinion since the output is a true 1080p, regardless of the the actual image being captured at 1080/60i. The camera has a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and proprietary software that handles this output conversion. The only case it really matters to record natively at 1080/30p is where the utmost image intregrity must be preserved. There is technically a very small amount of loss in de-interlacing the video, not much, but there is some. Obviously for professional usage, this becomes increasingly important.
Had you stated that no consumer cameras record at true 1080p, I would not have objected to your review. JVC has every right to state the camera is a 1080p camera if it's input and output is 1080p without upconversion. There is zero upconversion, there is de-interlacing, two very different things.
“It is not true that all televisions upconvert to progressive format. In
fact my older Panasonic CRT is a 1080i device. Not 1080p. Not 720p.
Regardless, the point is irrelevant – the camera's recording format is what
I questioned, not what some television might do with the video.”
[EVERIO]
Correct. I never said all TVs upconvert. 1080p TVs do de-interlace 1080i signals, this is why it's not likely HDTV will be broadcast anytime soon at anything more than 1080i. Broadcasting at 1080p would require too much bandwidth and would be pointless since TVs can de-interlace
so efficiently. We are talking 1080p, not about your old 1080i TV which can't handle 1080p. So
as I stated, above, if you connect the Everio to a 1080p TV, you will get 1080p video, not 1080i.
“Don't come on my site with insulting commentary when you don't take the time
to actually read what's written. Thanks.”
[EVERIO] Why post commentary and open up your commentary to comment, then complain when someone calls you on inaccuracy. If you're going to do this, I'm not sure why you have a comment box. To me, your commentary was insulting and misleading to me, so I responded as such. There is nothing personal in it, I just don't think it's fair of you however to make people think they got shafted on this camera with they in fact did not. The camera delivers in spades as advertised.
I do take issue with JVC's 1080/60p badging on the product tag. They are just saying their DSP and software can supporting de-interlacing to this progressive scan rate.
“I do take issue with JVC's 1080/60p badging on the product tag. They are just saying their DSP and software can supporting de-interlacing to this progressive scan rate.”
Thanks you agree with my point which was what I wrote about. The badging leads some to believe that it is a 1080p camera which it is not. It records at 1080i just like everything else on the market in that product space.
And for the record there are better cameras out there. Canon's older HF100, which can be found for about the same price, is a lot more flexible in its manual controls and includes the external audio port.
I know it's been a while since this discussion but I want to add my story: After reading all the specs I bought the Everio thinking it would record at 1080p but after shooting some tests and looking at the shots in a Quicktime movie I discovered the footage was actually interlaced. Big disappointment! I specifically asked for a 1080p camera because I hate the interlaced footage for doing graphics work. It's irrelevant how the signal is output, the images are still interlaced. Then I saw lonseidman's article and I knew I'd bought the wrong camera. I returned it today.
Just or the record, the Sanyo Xacti HD1010 records 1080i/1080p and other formats as well.
BTW it's a nightmare to convert Everio's files for use in a non-Intel Mac!
So I've decided to get the Canon Vixia HF200 which does 60i, 24p and 30p. We'll see how it goes when I receive it.
Happy New Year!
Just so you know the 30p and 24p on the hf200 are wrapped in a 1080i
file, so you need a way to do pulldown to get the true frame rate.
Check out Voltaic HD:
http://www.shedworx.com/node/107
The canon hv40, an HDV cam, does true 24p. Check out my review on here.
yes i agree with you
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