Digital Trends

JVC Everio GZ-HD7 June 10th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

The Everio HD7 is a hefty camcorder but has a nice solid feel, balancing well in the palm of your hand. It has a stealthy, pro look with its black body and lens hood. The camcorder weighs 1.7 pounds with battery and measures 3.67 x 3.1 x 7.36 (WHD, in inches). It definitely doesn’t look or feel like a toy and really stands out from almost all of the 80-or so camcorders currently available.

The front of the camcorder is almost completely taken up by the Fujinon 10x optical zoom lens with a wide f/1.8 aperture rating. One of the outstanding features is the manual focus ring that surrounds the lens. This ring makes it very easy to zero-in for a sharp focus when you’re in manual. Next to the lens is a Focus Assist button that puts a blue highlight around your subject ensuring sharp focus with the ring. Near it is a button to engage the ring. There’s a manual lens cover switch on the right side of the lens barrel. An automatic cover would’ve been nice but at least it’s not a cap connected by a string! Unfortunately there is no AF Assist lamp, built-in flash or light. Underneath the lens is a slot for an SD or SDHC card. If you want to record video to the card, make sure it’s classified Class 6. A 4 gig card will hold 25 minutes of SP not Full HD 1920 x 1080i video. All other SD/SDHC cards will record 1440 x 1080 Fine stills in the 4:3 mode or 1920 x 1080 in 16:9.The 60GB hard drive hold almost 10,000 stills and five hours of best quality video. Amazing stuff…

The top is fairly plain with a stereo microphone (mic), a 3CCD logo, the wide/tele toggle switch, a Snapshot button for taking stills and a cold accessory shoe; a hot shoe would’ve been most welcome. The right side is the compartment for the HDD and the main mode dial that’s operated by your thumb when your hand is in the comfortable strap. A small compartment covers the external mic input and A/V connector jacks.

On the left is the swing-out 2.8-inch screen that’s decent, but I would’ve liked it to be a bit sharper. In order to adjust the contrast, you have to go into Setup, find “Bright,” then make the changes up or down. Note to JVC engineers: change “Bright” to “LCD” next time around. It’s not a touchscreen but on the left side is a joystick to move through the menu options and a very handy key to see how much space is on your hard drive and how much juice is left in your battery (in minutes). Some have complained about battery life but I found it was pretty close to specs. A Function button accesses other menu choices when you’re in manual such as White Balance, Tele Macro and Zebra (more on this one later). Within the LCD compartment on the main body are keys for play/record, Menu, Info and Direct Back Up/Event. Event lets you label specific recordings with icons such as vacation or party so you can access them more quickly, one of the great benefits of HDD recording. There are also output jacks for S-video and component video cables. Above the screen on the body itself is a backlight compensation button as well as another to switch between auto/manual recording for videos and stills. 

The rear is dominated by two things—the rechargeable battery that sticks out a bit awkwardly and a huge (.57-inch) pull-out viewfinder. This is one of the best EVFs I’ve used in a long time and it has a comfortable eyecup and diopter control. On the right is the mode to dial to switch between off/video/stills, the record button and a light that tells you whether you’re camera or movie mode. On the left are dedicated buttons for aperture, shutter and bright (exposure compensation) tweaks. A handy dial below them lets you make these adjustments. Beneath the battery is a compartment for the HDMI, Firewire and USB outputs. Behind another smaller door is the DC-in jack to recharge the battery.

The GZ-HD7 comes with a good kit. Along with the camera and lens hood, there’s the rechargeable battery, component, A/V and USB cables and a remote. If you want to buy an HDMI cable, expect to pay $30-$40 USD; better yet, ask the dealer to throw one in since you’re spending a pretty penny for this camcorder. The CD-ROM has a number of programs to help you deal with high-def video and stills. These include Cyberlink PowerCinema NE for Everio, PowerProducer 3 NE and PowerDirector 5 NE Express plus a Digital Photo Navigator Ver. 1.5. Once the battery was charged, it was time to see how it performed.

Image Courtesy of JVC