A good quality compact camcorder and good value for money (JVC Everio GZ-MG330H)

Member Name: R8IT

Product:	JVC Everio GZ-MG330H
Date:	17/05/09 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price, Optical zoom, Size and weight, style

Disadvantages: Only basic still images, no mic input

If your looking for a good priced compact camcorder for general use such as around the home, family events etc then this is good for the job. Its compact size and light weight make it hasle free to carry about. It comes ina variety of colours and looks good. It has a laser touch sensitive screen - the control panels running at the side and the bottom are touch sensitive not the screen itself, a blue glow is seen when your finger glides across the sensor which is a nice touch. The left hand side allows you to scroll smoothly through the options whilst the menu on the bottom has five small buttons which again are touch sensitive.

This is one of a number of Evario versions, the higher end ones come with in-built light, remote control and larger hard drive. I cant say Ive missed having any of these features, the in-built lights on camcorders only give minimal light and work for close up footage.

No lens cap, instead the shutter closes with a switch on the side. The mic is located at the front so this helps, however the lack of a mic input lets it down. Plus it doesnt have an earphone jack instead an inbuilt speaker gives sufficient sound when playing back on the camcorder itself. Battery life I found is great and can be charged whilst attched to the camcorder rather than sitting the battery in a charge. The camcorder has an info button which allows you to view excatly how much time is left on the battery. An optional larger battery can be purchased which gives you even longer recording capability.

It has an impressive 35x optical zoom and a somewhat over the top 800x digital zoom but you can turn off the digital zoom in the settings and even limit the amount. The auto-focus works well but under lower light settings its not instant in locking in the focus.

Picture quality is really good with 4 modes to choose from from super fine at 8.5mps to economy at 1.5mbs. In the highest mode expect around 7 hrs of filming. Again this is quite a lot and easily enough to store any filming when going away. Given you can copy it onto DVD or store on your computer I havent seen an issue with the hard drive size. It also includes a slot for a micro SD card, it does come with a converter card so you can use in standard SD slots on a computer or other device. You can transfer footage between the hard drive and card or record just onto the card.

The image itself does show signs of compression especially when filming on the lower settings, so its wise just to record in the ultra fine mode. Colours are bright and it has in-built image stabilisation which is digital rather than the better optical, but still handy to have. And the hard drive has a drop detection feature but its not something Ive wanted to test!

The camcorder comes with software for editing on the computer, whilst the camera itself has some settings built in, such as gain control, exposure settings, white balance, backlight compensation etc. As for stills this is an area some may feel it falls short with images only 640x480 taken - so suitable for putting on the internet or for general viewing but thats all.

When recording evry time you press the pause button it stores the footage taken as individual segments, so when you click the button to switch to playback the screen shows lots of small images - so you can imagine if your filming say 5mins of footage but press pause a lot then rather than one 5 min segment being seen on the hard drive its broken down to individual segments. You can put fade out effects between segments on the camera itself whilst the software that comes with it allows more editing.

I would recommend this camcorder, its light weight, nice looking, good optical zoom HDD recorder. Its not the highest spec camcorder available but for the price its really good. However the prices are falling all the time as better spec equipment comes out and some of the High Def camcorders are coming down in price now and its questionable if its worth hanging on or paying that little bit extra for a high def model.

Summary: A well priced compact camcorder for general everyday use, its light weight & easy to use.

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