Great idea but poor implementation

I’ve been reading articles about smart devices that use miniature hard drives for the last couple of years now, so when I finally came across JVC Everio family of hard drive based camcorders I new I needed to get one!

The idea of course is absolutely brilliant: the video gets recorded as MPEG2 to the hard drive, and 20GB of storage on a 1.8" hard drive is enough to record over 4 hours of the NTSC video in 16:9 wide screen format in the highest video quality mode. This same camcorder is also available with a 30 GB hard drive which can store up to 7 hours of highest quality video (this modification is marketed as a separate model JVC Everio GZ-MG30, which is identical to JVC Everio GZ-MG20 with only difference in the capacity of the embedded hard drive).

Then just plug this camcorder to the USB connector of your computer and it shows up as an external hard drive, so you can copy the content to your computer, edit it there, and burn a DVD(fairly decent entry level video editing and DVD authoring software is included). This is pretty much as simple as using a digital still camera.

And because there are no moving removable parts, these JVC Everio GZ-MG20/30 camcorders are incredibly light (0.84 pounds), and easily fit into a palm of a hand.

Unfortunately, as brilliant as the idea is, the implementation isn’t nearly as great. Here is what I found terribly wrong with this camcorder:

1. The video encoding hardware definitely lacks the processing power it needs. Even though this camcorder boasts 8.5 Mb/s encoding rate in the highest quality mode, the resulting video is very "blocky", and can't handle even fairly moderate movements.

2. The optics on this unit is really poor. It claims 25x optical zoom and 800x digital zoom, and the zoom is great, but what use is zoom, if the autofocus works reliably only on objects as close as 5 feet, and for anything farther away it’s pretty much miss or hit (mostly miss).

3. The colors look washed out, although I can’t tell whether this because of poor optics, or due to the poor MPEG encoding hardware.

4. The standard battery included with this camcorder last less then an hour. Longer lasting batteries are available, but they are much bulkier.

JVC Everio GZ-MG20/30 camcorders can also be used as a still camera. Images can be stored on the hard drive, or, optionally, on the SD Card (not included). But the maximum resolution of the still camera is 640x480 (strange, since video goes up to 720x480, so why not allow stills at the same resolution?), and there is no built-in flash, so this camcorder is pretty much useless as a still camera.

Needless to say I returned this camera after about a week, after trying all possible modes and still getting nothing but crappy video quality. It was so disappointing that even 15% restocking fees didn’t stop me.

I ended up getting Sony DCR-HC90 instead. It’s not as technologically advanced, but the video quality is incredible.