Digital Trends

JVC EVERIO GZ-HD3 September 30th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Testing and Use

The GZ-HD3 is a high-def camcorder that uses three 570K pixel CCDs to capture images. It doesn’t record 1920 x 1080I video like the more expensive HD7 but 1440 x 1080I footage. JVC uses the MPEG-2 TS recording system, not AVCHD as do Panasonic, Sony and Canon. If you stay within the JVC ecosystem (burners, software) this shouldn’t be an issue.

Since there’s no drive to boot, the camcorder is ready to go in less than two seconds. HDD popularity is growing wildly—SD and HD—because of the massive storage available. A 60 gig drive holds five hours of XP-level video and if you knock it down to SP, you can save seven hours worth of memories. Compare this to 40 minutes for a 4GB card or 30 minutes with a 3-inch dual layer DVD. It’s easy saving an entire vacation without downloading to a laptop or dropping a bundle on a dozen SDHC cards. There are other issues we’ll get to shortly but this is amazing stuff.

Since it was the start of Fall with leaves starting to do their “color thing,” I took a drive to see how well the unit would capture the vividness of the reds and oranges—always difficult for most camcorders. I also took shots indoors with available light using the usual hodgepodge of Auto and Manual settings.

First off, the camcorder is very comfortable to operate with all the controls logically placed. The LCD screen held up well, even in direct sunshine. JVC makes you work to adjust the brightness (it’s buried way too deep in the menu system), but I found I really didn’t need it that often. (For the record, the HD7 has a very good EVF to use in difficult situations.) The zoom moved quickly through the 10x range. Focusing for the most part was quick and accurate although there were problems in areas with little contrast when I turned the light off. Here I moved into Manual mode and made adjustments using the Focus Assist. It worked well.

I did most of my recording in Auto and Program AE since this is what the vast majority of people do. There is a Manual mode where you can adjust brightness, shutter speed (to only 1/30th ), aperture (to f/2.2), four white balance options, a variety of effects including sepia, Tele Macro and Zebra (for measuring brightness). It’s not a great arsenal but it does help you tweak some settings—if you even care to do so.

Image Courtesy of JVC