April 2007 for $1,799.95 RRP

Seeing as to this cameras progressive scan CCD's- it'd be awesome if it offered some sort of "frame" mode or "progressive" mode......I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one!!

Big Ooooops by JVC....
 

Latest word is that this JVC will NOT have an "HDV" rec type format- this leaves us with NO native video type to use in our NLE's!!!!

I recall Chris Hurd saying HDV was developed as a "Tape" only format and I was indeed surprised JVC was able to encode on the fly to that format on the internal HD- I guess now we know this JVC can't do this ( I was hoping it would.)

So this sorta leaves us with raw video likely in M2T format that will have to be recoded to a NLE native format- meaning allot of time spent in conversions. This is the same scenario the Everio camcorders currently available leave us with as they record to a .mod file format which is a muxed mpeg2 stream with Dolby 5.1 audio. Mpegstreamclip is the encoder of choice for Mac users- I'm sure JVC will include a Windows solution.

This is a big thumbs down for ease of use as the files wont be able to be used right off the internal HD.

I'm still interested in the camcorder as it's the only 60GB HD HiDef camera and I'd rather convert video files than shoot to tape and capture etc.

If you guys learn anything new, please post your findings.

I figured when they said it was going to a drive or memory stick, or whatever. HDV/.m2t MUST be on minidv tape to be called HDV. Not to say you can't record it onto a drive, but then it technically isn't HDV.

heath

Whats wrong with M2T?

HDV is a tape only format so the camera, without a tape drive can not claim to be HDV but it can still record to disk a stream of video with the same codec specs as HDV records to tape. This is the same as you would get if you capture to your NLE without an intermediate codec.

Liquid imports M2T without the need for any conversions.

If this is indeed the case- this is great news as a native type video is necessary to make NLE editing possible w/o re-encoding.

Here's a video showcasing it by a JVC rep

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...8918&q=jvc+hd7

JVC HD Everio: Hands-On
 

HDV is great; we shot my newest feature film on HDV, with the Z1u.

heath

Paulo- good find!!!!

These next few months are gonna go real slowwwwwww.

Steve Nunez,
At least you showed us a video of the unit. All we need now is the impress.watch site to get a hold of one and post video clips. In the bright side, since this is Mpeg2, anybody without a powerful computer will be able to view the footage naturally unlike AVCHD.

Looks very good, and very compact. It actually reminds me of a Fujinon lens before it gets attached to a camera body. Nice form factor. The Gizmodo guy did sound a bit biased at first, but he straightened out towards the end and gave some fair descriptions. If this baby shoots as well as my Z1U with better color fidelity than standard HDV, a 5-hour runtime before dumping the HDD, and a simple means of getting it into FCP, well...

Don't get me wrong but there are still some issues to consider:

Battery life: Typically for JVC, battery life sux. 80min with the largest battery.

Don't forget the resolution is somewhat faked. Much of it comes from pixel offset, not a native 1920x1080 block, or even a 1280x720 block.it is a 1016x558 block with 976x548 effective pixels. This block isn't much more than a 16:9 SD (PAL) block using pixel offset to up the res (actually a PAL SD block has 576 vs this unit 548).

Other cameras that use pixel offset, such as the Panasonic HVX200 have shown to be softer in 1080 mode than the HD100 with its native 1280x720 CCD block.

Size: You couldn't use this camera for anything but consumer users, or semi-pro second camera (in a wedding for example), or as a POV. I understand it is all it is really designed for so that is fine, but its no HD replacement to the GY-DV300.

True- the native res isn't as high as one would hope for in a HD cam- but, considering it's reputable broadcast quality Fujinon lens- the pixel shifting might work out to be fine in the end (assuming it's native video is good to begin with.)

Small web samples simply wont do unless they're at 1440 or better- it's gonna be a long wait!

For my use this camera is perfect- let's hope JVC doesn't let us down with sub-par video performance.

(JVC if you're listening- provide som Mac software for once with these cams!)

This thing is meant to have a progressive block right? Yet there is no mention of it supporting 720p. At least with a decent 720p it could be a great cheapish little POV or second unit to match a much bigger brother 100/200 series.

Anyone knows what battery type it uses? If it is compatible with the 428 or 438 then you could possibly even use the AB/V-Mount adaptor for the HD100 on it for ample power. I have quite a bit of JVC batteries and adaptors for their higher end JVC mount, it would be a shame to not to be able to recycle it on such a unit as well. 80 min from the biggest battery (ie the 438) tells me it either using a smaller consumer JVC battery or is one hell of a power hog.