JVC GR-D70 Digital Camcorder [Mini-DV 16xOptical DV-in/out]
Average Customer Rating
(5.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First (5 out of 5)Excellent low-mid budget digital camcorder
Agree with comments made by previous reviewers. The CCD resolution may not be as high as £600+ models but outdoor pictures in good light are virtually indistinguishable from much live television. Sound is also remarkably clear for such a small microphone and free of boom and hiss, though it does pick up wind noise. Aside from this, the major good points are size and weight, build quality, the fact that it's a JVC (who invented VHS), and the DV-input, meaning that you can transfer edited footage from your hard disk back to the camera for playback to TV or VCR. Many cameras at this price have DV-output only, meaning edited footage is stuck on your hard disk unless you buy an expensive analog converter box or a DVD-writer (see below).
The major disappointment is the digital still mode which is almost useless indoors (due to lack of a flash) and even outdoors under ideal conditions is outperformed by a 1 megapixel camera. The NightShot mode doesn't have the infrared light included in Sony's system and works by simply slowing the shutter speed, so it can't work in complete darkness and fast moving objects appear blurred. Both the Backlight and the Wind Cut functions don't seem to make any difference as far as I can tell.
The battery does about 45-60 min recording time with the screen on and about 1.5-2h with it off (not bad for such a small camera), and takes about 1.5h to charge. JVC sell a wide range of batteries and only the smallest in the range is provided. However, power-up time is less than 5 seconds, so unless your subject requires it there's mostly no need to keep the camera switched on continuously.
I'm using Pinnacle Studio 8 to edit the footage, transfering the completed edit from the hard disk back onto the camera, then plugging the camera into my VCR and recording to VHS from the JVC's analog output. A word of advice for anyone wishing to make the most of this camera's picture quality - the single biggest loss in the entire recording/editing process is the final transfer to VHS; the difference between playing the resulting video tape and playing the camera's digital tape back through a TV directly is very noticeable! So it's worth investing in a DVD-writer for your PC, which can now be found for around £80. It will soon pay for itself if you shoot a lot of footage, since blank DVDs now sell for about £1 each compared to mini DV tapes which are more like £5 or £6.
(5 out of 5)A Brilliant camcorder that is difficult to fault
When searching for a digital camcorder, i found that every one i looked at, I would always pick out the bad points first. Some I found were to large or heavy, some looked of a poor quality and others looked cheap and nasty. This was not the case when looking at this one. The only bad point i could find was that the playback buttons were difficult to push as they are hidden behined the LCD screen when it is closed and upon purchasing it found that the night shot was not very reliable and/or effective.
It is of a very reasionable weight and has been well ergonomically designed to fit very comfortably in the palm of your hand. It also gives you the ability to zoom and access the menu and the other features using the one hand. The LCD screen quality is of a good size to be able to watch with ease.
The zoom claim to have a 700 range but this really is quite crazy and is better when you leave it on the 40 zoom setting as any further than this and it just becomes unsteady and the quality ofimage decreases rapidly the closer you zoom in.
It takes amazingly small tapes and they seem to last about as long as the battery judging from previous experiences. The digital effects are very fun to play with and there is a massive range of them, from black and white to sepia and even old style movie, where the footage speed is slowed down. They are all very fun and i found that this camera is hard to put down once you get playing with it! The sound quality is very good but does not play very loudly on full volume on the camera itself. However this is not a problem as you can playback through your VCR of television. It really is a good buy and I have no complaints about it except it is cheaper on amazon than where I got it from!!
Buy it and enjoy a good quality fun time of filming
(5 out of 5)An excellent Camcorder at an excellent price
I've had this item now for two weeks and i have just figured out what all the fuctions are. Its a great camcorder and if bought via amazon.co.uk an excellent price. Equivilant specs for a sony camcorder would be around £650. The playback quailty is excellent and actualy looks better if playbacked through your home TV instead of the smaller 2.5" LCD display. Snapshoot mode is also quite good which seems to be an issue that some people might disagree with. Because it has dv in\out facility, you can copy the images from the camcorder's MMC (multimedia card) to the PC and edit the images your self with good editing software such as Adobe photoshop and make the pictures even better. Video playback can also be editied once copied to your PC using software such as pinnacle studio 8, where you can copy your footage to a DVD (if you have a DVD writer on your PC) then add features like interactive menus and scene access like new DVD movies. The battery life on the standard battery only gives you about 1.5 hours of life so an upgraded battery might be an idea, other than that it has all the new features such as memory card, digital zoom, night scope, mini dv format, dv & usb in\out. Its hard to fault this superb JVC Digital camcorder.
(5 out of 5)What a bonus!
Having a bunch of old 8mm video tapes and an analogue Canon video camera, I was unsure whether to go the digital 8 route or DV. I saw the review of the GRD70 and saw it had an anologue input so I bought it. I thought that transferring my old tapes would mean recording them onto the DV tape and then re-transferring/editing on my PC, BUT NO! Even easier!! Plug vcr or old video camera into 'av in' on the GRD70 (leave the DV tape out and select 'av in' switch) connect the firewire to the pc, fire up your video editing programme and you get instant transfer from analogue camcorder to pc!
My computer is only an AMD 700mhz with 128mb ram and it works fine, the only extra I had to buy was the Nsis firewire card (another Amazon bargain at £20).
Everything worked first time. If you haven't got a firewire port on your pc then the USB connection works with moving video and stills and captures in mpeg1. But for £20 you may as well get the Nsis card, it's a dream to install.
The GRD70 is a nice camera with features not normally found at this price. While your waiting for your camera to arrive from Amazon, download the instruction book from www.jvc.co.uk it will let you get familiar with the machine before it arrives and then you can then get stuck straight in when it does!
(5 out of 5)Excellent camera, loads of features..
For once I bought something cheaper elsewhere! I actually bought this camera for £348.00 with free next day delivery, therefore I'm definately giving it 5/5!! Shop around, I wont name the company! The camera is palm sized and has loads of features, I'm still trying to work them all out! You get a memory card included which is handy, so you can save your still shots here, and keep the tapes for the movies. At this price I'm well chuffed!