Family gatherings are always a convenient excuse to pull out the camcorder and start shooting. If you thought your choice of weaponry was confined to the 10-year-old MiniDV tape format, guess again. You’d be ignoring two of the hottest trends of the last few years: hard-disk recording and high-definition TV. It’s not your fault. After all, while TiVo and the iPod garnered all the attention, it was their embedded — and unseen — hard drives that did all the work. Similarly, HDTV quality is something you might watch, but probably not something you thought you could create.
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What We Think
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| Everio GZ-MG30 | Sony HDR-HC1 |
| This camcorder gets thumbs up for its compact size, high-quality video, and tapeless day-long capacity. | A compact, full-feature camcorder that shoots gorgeous high-def footage and costs less than a new car. |
Both technologies, hard drives and high-definition, are available now in camcorders, though there isn’t yet a consumer model that records high-def to a hard drive. Maybe next year. Meanwhile, JVC and Sony are pushing the envelope. JVC’s Everio GZ-MG30 ($900) contains a tiny (1.8 inch) but massive (30-gigabyte) hard drive that makes tape obsolete. Sony’s HDR-HC1 ($2,000) is the least-expensive high-definition camcorder we’ve seen to date, yet the picture quality is so dazzling that professionals using much more expensive equipment are eying it up. Weight-wise, the two cams are about a pound apart, but compared with the current generation of camcorders, each is in a class by itself.
JVC
Everio GZ-MG30 Hard-Drive Camcorder
When I reviewed JVC’s first Everio camcorder (“The Cutting Edge,” December 2004), my biggest complaint was that its 4-gigabyte (GB) MicroDrive restricted you to just an hour of best-quality video, and a spare drive — unlike the MiniDV tapes used in most digital camcorders — was neither cheap nor widely available. For its new G-series, JVC has eliminated the removable MicroDrive and replaced it with an embedded 1.8-inch hard drive, the same size drive that made the Apple iPod famous. With its 30-GB capacity, the Everio GZ-MG30 lets you record from 7 to 37 hours of video. So even at the highest quality, it’s unlikely that you’ll run out of recording time, even on a week-long family trip. Once you’re done recording, you hook the Everio up to a Windows or Macintosh computer to transfer your videos for editing and burning to DVD.
OPERATION Working the Everio is pretty simple. You set the mode switch to shoot MPEG-2 video or still images. Using the menu button and flip-out LCD viewscreen, you can set the video quality. The default mode, Ultra Fine, records 720 x 480 pixels at 8.5 megabits per second (Mbps), which yields the 7 hours maximum. The Fine, Normal, and Economy modes capture 101/2, 14, and 37 hours, respectively. Economy, which is pretty much useful only for uploading video to the Internet, drops the resolution to 352 x 240 pixels and the bit rate to 1.5 Mbps, adequate in a window on a computer but crummy filling a TV screen. If you expect to watch your production on a widescreen TV, you can record in 16:9.
In any mode, the supplied battery records for about an hour on a 1.5-hour charge (larger-capacity battery packs are available). Before shooting, you can also choose whether you want to save your video or stills to the hard drive or to your own SD card inserted at the bottom of the cam. The default for both is the hard drive, but I redirected still photos to a 512-MB card.
When you stop recording a scene, you get the option to delete it or instantly play it from the beginning. The LCD fills up with thumbnails showing the first frame of every scene you’ve shot, and navigating to any one of them is quick. The G-series includes a front-mounted LED to illuminate close-up scenes for shooting video or photos in dim or no light. You’ll use it sparingly, though, since it drains the battery and reaches only a couple of feet.
The Everio has several other nice features, including a drop detector that turns off the power automatically to protect the content on your hard disk from colliding with the read/write head if the camera senses it’s falling. (This function can be defeated if you plan to go skydiving.) The multipurpose zoom lever serves as a 25x optical zoom and as the volume control for the built-in speaker when you play videos.
PERFORMANCE During the last week of summer, I threaded the Everio to a 6-inch tripod and positioned it by my neighbor’s pool to make two short videos: I Was a Secretary for IBM, my neighbor’s recollections of working at Big Blue after World War II (as told in her bathing suit), and Pool Boy, a record of my struggle to regain control of the pool from swimming frogs and floating leaves. The Everio performed flawlessly throughout, perfectly capturing all the action and natural sound as I hurled frogs from the chlorinated water with a long-poled skimmer net. My biggest complaint was the startup time — a long 8 seconds from powering on until you can actually begin recording (including a nondefeatable JVC logo animation on the LCD). If your kid is coming up to bat, better make sure the camera is already in standby mode. A secondary complaint is that the tiny play button is cramped at the center of a navigational diamond, making it too easy to select the wrong thumbnail when your finger strays off center.
As for quality, the Ultra Fine video mode is what you’d expect from DVD recordings, and the Dolby Digital stereo sound, which is recorded at 384 kilobits per second (kbps) for all modes except Economy (where it drops to 128 kbps), was crisp. The camera’s stereo mike had no trouble picking up the sound of crickets, rippling water, and even a distant tractor.
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The Short Form
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| JVC.COM / 800-252-5722 / $900 / 2.625 x 2.75 x 4.25 IN / 13.4 OZ WITH BATTERY AND LENS CAP |
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Plus
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•Excellent video quality. •Generous recording time. •Never buy tape again. |
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Minus
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•Inferior still-image quality. •Long (8-second) startup. •No external mike input, earphone jack, or eyepiece viewfinder. |
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Key Features
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•$900 •30-GB drive for 7 to 37 hours of video •SD slot (card not included) •21/2-inch foldout/rotating LCD viewscreen •25x optical zoom •LED light, speaker, remote •outputs composite video and stereo from single-pin connector; S-video; USB 2.0 •CyberLink software for Windows; Capty MPEG Edit EX for Mac |
One of the things I found especially helpful was the dedicated Info button. It told me how much time was left on the battery. And it showed me a pie chart of free vs. used space on the hard drive and how many hours and minutes were left in each of the four recording modes.
DVD CREATION Unlike camcorders that record directly to time-constrained mini DVDs, the Everio relies on your having a relatively new computer with a DVD writer. In fact, sooner or later you’ll have to copy video you’ve recorded to an external device so you can make room for new video on the hard drive. Though there’s no FireWire (i.Link) output on the Everio to accommodate digital copying to a standalone DVD recorder, there is a lightening-fast USB 2.0 computer connection via the supplied cable. Or you could copy from the Everio’s analog video outputs to a dedicated DVD recorder, but at the sacrifice of some picture quality.
It’s better to go direct to computer. With this in mind, the Everio is bundled with CyberLink’s DVD Solution, a group of Windows-based programs for importing video, editing, and creating a DVD. Using the PowerProducer 2 Gold program, you can simply transfer the video from the camera and record a DVD. For more tweaking, I loaded PowerDirector NE Express to import scenes, reorder them, trim some, add a title menu (for Pool Boy I used video from the bubbly pool as background), and burn a DVD. I could also have inserted transitions, a voiceover, and music. My 39 minutes of video took 23 minutes to render and burn to DVD. The CyberLink programs are reasonably easy to use, and their capabilities are amply serviceable for typical home production needs. Mac users, unfortunately, are provided with a less capable program called Capty MPEG Edit EX.
BOTTOM LINE Now that JVC’s Everio line has achieved hard-drive capacity equal to or greater than a stack of MiniDVs, tapes are history. At $900, the GZ-MG30 is more expensive than most MiniDV camcorders. But think of the money you’ll save on tape and the value of owning a high-quality, instant-replay video camera so small and lightweight that you’d no sooner leave home without it than you would your cellphone.
SONY
HDR-HC1 High-Def MiniDV Camcorder
In a small, comfortable package, Sony’s HDR-HC1 camcorder packs all the ease-of-use and convenience features demanded of consumer-grade camcorders. For instance, a nifty LCD touch-panel viewscreen with layers of easily accessed menus eliminates most of the control buttons found on other cameras. You’ll also find all of the setup features craved by advanced users, including manual control of exposure, focus, zoom, and mike level.
But the big story here can be summed up in four powerful letters: HDTV. That’s right — the HDR-HC1 shoots video in the widescreen, high-definition 1080i HDV format directly onto standard MiniDV tape, and you can easily transfer the content to a PC or Mac for editing. For only $2,000, moviemaking image quality is now within reach of ordinary folks. In comparison, the Sony high-def cameras George Lucas used for the last Star Wars movie list for $115,800 each!
RECORDING QUALITY New York City is great camcorder country — especially when the camera is high-def. And from the gridlike arrays of skyscraper windows in the skyline and the sparkle of the sun off the water at the Lake in Central Park to the brilliant colors of Times Square at night, the HDR-HC1 delivered images of stunning clarity, sharpness, and color accuracy. At the same time, the picture was remarkably free from video noise or encoding artifacts such as “blocking” or “mosquito noise.”
For nearly all the scenes I shot, the picture from the HDR-HC1 — with its single-chip high-def image sensor — was fully the equal of that from the larger, heavier, and considerably more expensive ($3,800) Sony HDR-FX1, a three-chip professional-grade HD camcorder I tried out a few months ago. Only when ambient light got very, very dim did the HC1 stumble — for example, when I tried shooting the flags around the skating rink at Rockefeller Center at night after all the lights were turned out, the picture got objectionably grainy and the autofocus had difficulty locking in. But there’s no question that in overall image quality the HDR-HC1 blows away every standard-definition DV camcorder.
That said, the camcorder does have some less desirable characteristics, most of which are common to all consumer camcorders. For example, when zoomed all the way out, the HDR-HC1’s lens caused vertical objects on the sides of the image, like buildings and flagpoles, to seem to tilt inward. It takes practice to keep the variable-speed zoom control working at its slowest speed, which is still a bit too fast for my liking. Then again, most amateur camcorder footage, mine included, uses too much zooming, the effects of which are amplified in widescreen format.
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The Short Form
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| SONYSTYLE.COM / 877-865-7669 / $2,000 / 2.875 x 3.75 x 7.5 IN / 1.75 LBS WITH BATTERY, TAPE, AND LENS CAP |
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Plus
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•Superb high-definition image quality. •Records on standard DV tape. •Easy-to-use menus on LCD touchpanel. •Reasonably priced for an HD camcorder. |
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Minus
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•No bundled capture/editing software. •Some problems with bright, saturated highlights. •Bass-shy recordings from internal mike. |
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Key Features
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•$2,000 •Records 1,440 x 1,080-pixel high-def video •LCD viewscreen/control panel •Captures 1,920 x 1,440-pixel still images to Memory Stick Pro •10x optical zoom •Pop-up flash for still-camera function •Stereo microphone •input/output i.Link for digital A/V; LANC jack for control of compatible devices; Active Interface Shoe for video light or external microphone •input external mike •outputs multiconductor component video (1080i/480i); composite video and stereo audio; S-video; USB 2.0; headphone |
The only other notable performance weakness was limited bass in the pickup from the built-in mike, which is intended to reduce the noises produced by wind and camera handling. But you also miss the body-shaking rumble of a passing subway train — a switchable wind filter would have been a better solution.
EDITING Unless you’re really good at in-camera editing — setting up, starting and stopping your shots precisely — you’ll eventually want to “capture” (transfer) your footage on a computer for editing. Alas, neither the HDR-HC1 nor the big HDR-FX1 comes bundled with capture/editing software. Both cams connect to any computer with an i.Link (FireWire, IEEE 1394) connection, but you’ll need a video editing program like Sony’s Vegas that specifically enables HD capture (Mac users will need at least iMovieHD). The typical standard-definition video capture/editing software you may already have — including Windows Moviemaker — will not be able to transfer the HDR-HC1’s high-def footage. However, if you use the camcorder’s internal convert-to-standard-definition function when dubbing, you’ll end up with standard-def computer files that are great for making your own widescreen DVD productions.
Computer capture of HD material is doubly important given my experience with tape/machine compatibility problems when playing an HD tape in a camcorder it was not recorded in. I don’t want to be alarmist, but all my tapes made in the three-chip HDR-FX1 — recorded on blanks from several manufacturers, Sony among them — played with intermittent stuttering (frozen frames, audio dropping out every few seconds) in the HDR-HC1. Both cams were review samples, and I don’t know what kind of abuse they may have suffered before I received them. But each played its own tapes without problems. The solution, if this is a real problem, is to play your HD footage in the camcorder it was recorded in, capture it in HD to a computer hard drive, and then burn unedited DVD-ROMs for future editing on any computer.
BOTTOM LINE Given the HDR-HC1’s striking image quality, filmmaking friends I’ve shown it to seemed quite willing to put up with hassles like buying a new HDTV able to display native 1080i signals or archiving their footage to DVD-ROM (a good practice in any case). If you want to capture scenic vistas in full high-def glory or if any of your (very) deserving gift recipients has any aspirations to filmmaking, the HDR-HC1 is the camcorder for you and for them. I’ve used all the consumer HD camcorders on the market, and the HDR-HC1, despite its minor limitations, has a winning combination of performance, features, usability, compactness, and price. It is by far my favorite.