 "Fantastic Camcorder" | 2009-06-12 |
| - Reviewed By lp1952 |
| Read some poor reviews but to my delight it is just what I wanted. An upgrade to HD from a 3 chip Sony. Videos are gorgeous, battery life is better than reviews. I bought an extended life battery and have only had to use it once on an extra inning baseball game. Integrates perfectly with iMovie 09 once I learned how to create and play playlists in the camera. I am a happy camper. The unit arrived promptly from the vendor with all original accessories. Could not tell it from brand new. |
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| "maybe a 4.5 but a 1 never" | 2009-04-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1S2ZX1BHO9K1S |
| I have owned this camera for about 2 years, conversion is tricky and does take some reading on how to do it, but it is not difficult once you learn. 1.8-1.9 aperture, low light ability is what that means. If it is very dark then get a video light. Attach a microphone and the sound is fantastic. IS with video you will still need a tripod, best, or monopod at minimum, especially for long filming. Two years ago, I read almost every thing that I could about camcorders before purchasing this camera and found it to be the best on the market at the price I paid for it. It is still one of the best, if you use manual controls, which many others don't even offer. But like we say in DSLR language maybe some people like to keep it in the "P" professional setting. Cheers. |
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 "Spend your money wisely! This is not one of those!" | 2009-03-25 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2MP8HVQ9VTE7X |
I have owned a JVC GZHD7 for almost two years now and filmed about a hundred hours with it. My rating of a `1' may come across as harsh; Even though the GZHD7 has a few nice features it lacks ease of use and for the price. It really isn't worth the hassle! I wanted this camcorder to just give me what I filmed so I can burn it to a DVD. That's all I wanted, instead JVC's uses a unique file format, which should be a customer service crime. The accompanying software is useless and is a bait and switch tactic to buy the software that works. JVC did not share the file format codec with any other video editing software out there! So you WILL NOT be able to use a majority of the programs without hours of converting it to be a playable movie.
A few positives; The GZHD7 is sexy as hell! It's a reliable and a very durable camcorder. The picture quality is great. If you plan to keep all the recordings on the camcorders hard drive, this camcorder is for you.
The cons of the JVC GZHD7 is it's a pain in the #@$ to edit. If you want to film, edit and copy to DVD, you should consider another camcorder. Honestly!
* The file format is not a simple Mpeg or AVI but rather a complicated format which requires you to purchase very expensive programs to convert it. Even the software that comes with it is junk, but you can always upgrade it to work. No hanks JVC!
* Recording in low light mode is absolutely useless. Imagine a very slow image being distorted, almost psychedelic like! Cell phones take better images in low light.
* Nightalive. Just doesn't work!
* You will lose a lot of quality if you use the Image stabilization option while recording.
* The way the system saves the files is a nightmare. Every time you pause a recording a separate file is created. Now with all the geniuses at JVC, you would think they would use a filing system that works. Files are saved as MOV001 - MOV010, than MOV001a and so forth. Files are not grouped by date and time which would keep them in order; instead files are transferred to your computer in alphabetical and numerical. Imagine your sons football game, you push pause between downs and later go to watch it on your PC and it is the start of 3rd quarter, then a play from 2nd quarter and so on..
I know some will disagree with this review but that's ok. I hope at lest you will reconsider what you really want in your camcorder. Good luck filming. |
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| "Learn to use this camera, it's worth it!" | 2009-03-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2OCSPV4R9NA0O |
| Great camera, but.... if you just use it like a point and shoot, it will perform like every other point and shoot. Take the time to learn and use the manual settings and this camera will reward you with broadcast quality video. Image stabilization not particularly great, use a tripod. check out a couple of my vids on youtube. [...] |
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| "Awesome Hi-def Camcorder" | 2009-02-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1IOB6KCRQD4ZL |
| One of the best HD camcorders ever made....picture quality is amazing and the software that comes with it is great....way better than sony or panasonic... |
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| "4.5 Stars" | 2008-08-30 |
| - Reviewed By bass_cadet |
Funny thing about Amazon reviews: anyone can create one and there is minimal fact checking. They range from single review shills who post ad copy verbatim to dingbats who rate a product one star because the delivery took an extra day.
With this camcorder, there appears to be three overall groups: those who don't even own it but feel they have to inform others about competing products, those who can't get it to work well in automatic mode or with their computers, and those who love it. For those who have only read reviews on other sites and copy that info here, yeah, I can and do read other websites, too. It's not helpful to include that information here, especially if the reviewer has not even used the HD7.
For the second group, I'd agree that the GZ-HD7 does not perform very well as a "point and shoot" camcorder. To get the most out of it, it should be operated in manual mode. It's not difficult but does take a little practice and experimenting. I'd admit the image stability system doesn't seem to work well and drops it down to 4.5 stars. As far as the computer interface, I just bought Corel's Ulead Video Studio 11.5 Plus program and that works perfectly with this--just copy the files over and open the .tod. Note: I got this as an open box and didn't receive the software. The Ulead program was the same price as what JVC wanted for the replacement disc.
Put me firmly in the third group. This thing is GREAT! Except for the image stability, it's perfect. Others say mini DV systems are the way to go for archival purposes. Sure, if your camcorder still works. I have a bunch of old tapes and a broken camcorder... and a new MiniDV camcorder that doesn't play those old tapes. Give me an HDD, 3 CCD, slap on an f1.8 Fujinon lens, and I'm happy. |
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