Now that the dust has settled...

[Kalunga Lima]

Now that the dust has settled, i'm curious to know how those who have bought the HD Everio a few months ago, think of it now?

I'm also interested to know if Mac compatibility issues have been resolved with FCP6.

Thanks

[Steve Nunez]

Been using it quite a bit......terrible image stabilization and poor handling of "bright" areas causing easy blowouts- also exhibits allot of chromatic abberation (poor lens design/materials?)
Easy to use and decent battery life, very nice manual focus.....not too bad in low light.....

...for a video purist they'd likely be disappointed- but for the average consumer- they'll think it's great!!!

Fix the IS and highlight handling and it's be a very nice camcorder.

[Tibor Duliskovich]

Read my final opinion in the end of this long post.

Here are additional issues I found using this camcorder for more than two month now:

When I leave it running on a tripod outside in 30 degrees Celsius in shade (like filming hummingbirds or a snake's nest for example) the camcorder becomes painfully hot. Because the heat receptors report pain to the brain at temperatures above 70 degrees Celsius, this is what the surface temperature of JVC is. Imagine what is it like inside. I can tell that the HDD will not last long in such conditions, that is for sure. I had a number of my external drives fail due to insufficient ventilation.

I already mentioned how far back and to the side is the tripod mounting hole. Well this is causing a major problem - the mounting plate of video tripod when mounted is NOT parallel with the bottom of camcorder (the screw tension pulls it aside). So you straighten you video head to be precisely horizontal in all directions, you shoot your boat race, come home just to realize that all your horizons are off. Very disappointing. If you level you head with correction - than you pans go from straight to skewed...

If you remember my previous posts about this camcorder being progressive - I was wrong. It is not. Somewhere along my experiments I made a logical error or this camcorder processes signal in a way it should not. The fact is I can not extract progressive footage out of this camcorder.

Another major issue for me is the fact you can not lock the exposure on this camera. With all its manual controls it leaves one on automatic control at all the times. For example you can set aperture and shutter speed, but not the gain correction, which will automatically wonder as overall brightness of scene changes. Or you can set AGC and shutter speed, but aperture will adjust automatically. And I am not talking about gain control in menu where you can switch it off/on, the "brightness" control comes on top of it. It is impossible to record a realistic sunset or sunrise with this JVC. Even worth - someone crosses in front of your cam in black shirt - guess what happens with your video.

Here is how I use my camera:
1. Always shoot from good quality tripod with fluid video head. No handheld shots.
2. Turn the OIS off. OIS is really bad. Ruins your picture.
3. Always manual focus at tele with fully opened iris and then zoom out and start shooting.
4. Forget about autofocus - very poor. Use focus assist.
5. Do not do fast pans, shoot steady. Stop, reposition the camera, keep shooting. Stop and go. This camcorder is interlaced after all... If you pan, you will see the usual comb on edges.
6. Do not shoot fast moving objects - the compression scheme is not so good,
if you have a lot of motion in frame, like ocean waves or tree leaves, the image is bad.
7. If you need to deinterlace the easiest is to drop every other line. You will loose resolution, but you will get a progressive half frame.
8. Buy extra batteries.
9. Give it some time to cool down between shots.
10. Take sedatives prior to shooting and be very patient and forgiving.

After using this camera for two month and wanting to love it, my advise - do not buy it unless you are prepared to fight for every minute of video you capture... If you are like me and expect video to be good at pixel level - forget about it. If you are like me and are willing to spend 10 minutes to work around weaknesses of this cam to capture few seconds of good looking video - you may want to give it a try. The tapeless workflow alone does not compensate for its shortcomings.

Tibor

[Mikko Lopponen]

Originally Posted by Tibor Duliskovich

5. Do not do fast pans, shoot steady. Stop, reposition the camera, keep shooting. Stop and go. This camcorder is interlaced after all... If you pan, you will see the usual comb on edges.

Eh? You should never see any combs, unless you're watching it on a progressive monitor without some sortof deinterlacing. It applies to ALL interlaced signals.

[Kaushik Parmar]

Tibor Duliskovich,

Hi! I am proud owner of GZHD7, I am using it since last four months, and I am happy with it. I would appreciate if you can post some more clips.

Thanks,
Kaushik

[Steve Mullen]

You certainly can lock exposure in 2 different exposure modes. Read the manual more closely. When locked there will be an L displayed. However, the manual is wrong about Spot meter locking. You must press IN the joystick.

There is software that can do really great deinterlacing. There is no need to lose half the V. rez.

There is no combing on an HDTV. And, there are no MPEG-2 blocking artifacts on rippling water or fast moving objects like cars speeding by the camera. Somethings wrong with your display device.

Problems with OIS and AF come from a style of shooting. Try getting in "up close and intimate" with your subjects, keeping zoom to no more than 3X -- which is a whopping f=150mm -- and all will be fine. Watch "24" -- the camera stays in the actors faces. Often you only see a part of an actors face. You don't have to go that far, but keeping your distance and using zoom has a totally different feel than moving up close. Follow action if hand holding. Never hand hold a static shot!

And, because its HD you can also shoot wide from a distance getting a sweeping view. You'll still see all the details.

Nevertheless, JVC certainly did screw-up the OIS. But, the plain fact is ALL widescreen video looks better when shot from a tripod. You can't point-and-shoot for good HD.

For the last decade cameras have used inner-focus optics. You do not need to zoom in fully to get focus. Simply frame your subject.

You are correct -- at 115 the camera sure does get hot!!! But, HDD failing is your assumption. The Everio series has been shipping for years -- I've to read a post about a failed drive.

PS1: Use Spotlight AE mode or BRIGHT mode with 100IRE Zebra and hightlights will no longer burn-out. The HD7 has exposure controls, so it only makes sense to use them.

PS2: You don't need VLC. MPEGstreamclip V1.9 beta reads TOD files.

PS3: Played via HDMI or burned to HD DVD and displayed on a calibrated 50-in display, the image is very detailed. Equal to a Sony Z1. In fact, the camcorders Rez is equal to the $6,000 Panasonic HVX200 P2 camcorder that uses the same CCD design.

[Wayne Morellini]

Steve, any news on that, late, single chip professional camera I was told about, or any 720p camera?

[Steve Mullen]

UPDATE: You certainly can lock exposure in 2 different exposure modes. Read the manual more closely ---->>> page 26.

I've heard of nothing, but I've voiced the desire for a much smaller 720p60 camcorder.

Of course, using a hard drive, they are free to leap to 1920x1080p60.