Digital Trends

JVC GZ-MG70U

November 2nd, 2005 | by David Elrich

Performance

Prepping the GZ-MG70 was a breeze. You simply attach the battery, plug the AC adaptor into the DC input, wait for about 90 minutes and you're fully charged.

JVC has created a very easy-to-use menu system for everything from setting the clock to adjusting resolution and manual tweaks. It's extremely readable and simple to follow. Any camcorder user would find it very familiar. The only unusual setting was buried in Basic and dealt with Drop Protection. When enabled it helps the HDD curl into a ball as the camcorder falls to the floor (it kills the power). It's more complicated than that but that's what's happening. JVC points out the function cannot protect the HDD every time it's dropped. I didn't have the heart to heave the $1,000 camcorder onto the floor, so I'll take JVC's word for it.

I initially set the GZ-MG70U on Ultra Fine which is 720 x 480 pixels at 8.5 Mbps, the same MPEG2 setting used by DVD camcorders. Like all camcorders, it's as easy to use as a light switch. Simply put the GZ-MG70U is record mode, open the LCD, press record and you're in business. The palm-sized unit fit nicely in my hand with the index finger resting on the wide/tele zoom switch and the thumb on the record button. I shot some scenes in Auto of fall foliage capturing a wide range of colors. Although I didn't drop it, I did roughly shake the camcorder to see if the HDD would skip. It didn't. I also wanted to see how the built-in image stabilizer worked. It was pretty good, not great, especially with extremely zoomed scenes. Along with outdoor shots that included the New Jersey seashore, I also recorded indoors with the Gain Up setting turned on. I also took a number of photos using auto and manual focus.

The camcorder doesn't have a viewfinder, just an LCD screen so you're at the mercy of its quality which is not a good thing. Although it withstood hard sunlight and you can adjust brightness via the menus, the 112K pixel screen is not very accurate. Moving my eyes from the subject in real life and then watching it on the LCD was disconcerting. It wasn't anywhere near the same, particularly with shades of red and orange. After using the Kodak EasyShare One, it was especially jarring. Once I made my rounds it was time to check out the results.

Before getting into the details, I have to give JVC credit. With the 30GB HDD, I barely gave a thought to extra media (disks, tapes or memory cards). It almost seemed like a bottomless pit. The battery gave it up long before the drive. If you buy this one, a large spare is an absolute must. JVC sells one that lasts almost 4.5 hours.   

Videos were played back on a Toshiba 36-inch 4:3 digital TV using S- and composite and on a Dell Dimension 9100. Although the GZ-MG70U does not have a FireWire out (just USB2.0) transferring video to the PC was fast after loading the supplied software. Stills were recorded to an SD card and printed directly from the computer to a Canon MP780. And what did I see?

Like DVD camcorders, stills are generated for each scene so it's a snap moving from place to place during playback, something no tape-based model can do. It's a great feature. Video quality was a mixed bag. It did not have the noise I've seen on some DVD camcorders but the camcorder had real problems with a windswept tree; the leaves were not distinct and this was with footage shot with only the optical zoom; the digital zoom boost that reaches 200x was turned off. Yet in some other scenes, colors were very accurate and blacks were rich and deep. The camcorder also had problems with some of the last roses of summer; colors just weren't right and didn't have punch. It really seemed to have problems delivering strong reds. During a walk near the beach on a windy day, the mic made it sound like I was standing in the middle of Hurricane Katrina. Definitely make sure the Wind Cut setting is enabled if there's a breeze about. But the waves hitting the shore looked nice on the large TV screen.

I was pleasantly surprised as far as stills were concerned. Remember it has only a 2MP CCD, placing it a notch above camera phone resolution although the lens is far superior to anything available on a mobile. Expect to print 4x6s and nothing more but that's all you should expect from a 2MP file. It wasn't the Optura 600 but it wasn't a disaster either. I shot using manual focus and it worked well when I could make out the subject on the LCD. This was an issue with direct sunlight.