JVC BN-V428U 4 Hour Battery?
 

Hello all:

First post. Been reading tons and tons of good info on this site about the JVC cameras and finally I made my decision to ditch my DVX100A and get a GY-HD100A with a BR-HD50 deck Love it!

I am a little confused though. I did not do my homework when it came to purchasing the batteries. I went ahead and purchased 5 BN-V428U. I know people rave about the IDX bateries but I never took the time to figure out why. When it came to make my decision, it all boiled down to weight.

On the B&H Photo website, they sell the BN-V428U as 4 hour batteries. All I get is just about 45 minutes with the flip monitor open and nothing else attached to it. I do not have a Firestore or light mounted...so all I am doing is powering the camera.

What in the world am I doing wrong here? The math just doesn't add up.

the LCD monitor is going to cut down that time quite a bit as well as 'excessive' zooming of the lens

Ok, but does it shave 3 hours and 15 minutes of time? I had Panasonic 5 hour batteries for my DVX and I would always get 4 hour plus of usage with LCD open and excessive zooming. Even after 2 years after heavy usage,, some of them where giving me 3 hours plus.

What is with the power consumption and this camera? Is this why everyone migrates to IDX? Is it a power flaw?

Power flaw, no but I think higher power draw for sure. in a quick check, the DVX power consumption is 7.2 watts, the 110 ( not sure if it with the LCD or not) is 17 watts.
explains why JVC offers a IDX/AB adapter for the 110 and built in on the 200/250

runtime is always relative to power consumption. as explained, the JVC draws way more power than the average consumer camera. over three times the average. it all comes down to capacity of the battery-and not everyone expresses this in the same terms.

the AB/IDX batts are rated in WattHours (WH). Most consumer batts are rated in milliAmpreHours (mAH). Multiply mAH by the voltage of the battery and then divide by 1000 to get the WH equivalent. The bn-v428 is a 2800mAH/7.2 volt battery.

2800 x 7.2 / 1000 = 20.16 WH

The HD100 draws around 17 watts in rec mode with the LCD turned off (forget what it is when it's on, 18-19 maybe?). Divide the battery capacity by the load of the camera for the runtime.

20.16 / 17 = 1.18 hours

Power usage is not always 100% efficient, but you can see that about an hour of runtime is about all you can expect out of that battery. even less since the jvc will shut down with even a small drop in battery voltage.

I bought the AB Dionic 90 batteries (90 WH!) and know I can get a solid 4 hours even with the LCD turned on. Add a 20W light and I'm still good for a few hours.

So this brings us back to the "four hour" rated battery. It's obviously labeled that way because on a typical consumer camera that only draws 5W of power it WOULD last for four hours.

Maybe they could use this on "Numbers"... :-)

Just great!...might as well throw these babies to the trashcan! :)

So IDX is the way to go I figure...is there anything middle of the row? Halfway as expensive? And to think that I just sold my entire Anton Bauer batteries production package and Triton Charger with my DSR-300...NOOOO!

Thanks all for such great responses.

I would hang on to the stock JVC bricks. I upgraded to an Anton Bauer package and I hung onto the JVC batteries and a couple aftermarket JVC mount batteries and then bought this from nebtek. I just chose JVC as the battery mount and now I can use my JVC batteries to power my LCD screen, wireless battery pack, etc.

The mount seems a little pricey, but it was worth it for me, as I can get my full 2+ hours out of my Hytron 50 batteries without running off the powertap.

It warns not to draw more than 1.2A, but it's perfect for most LCD screens.

I think the battery power output is related to the surrounding temperature as well. Well, I live in tropical area, I guess my battery can supply more power.

To add to this excellent summary, the AB battery is stressed out much less, so it will last longer. When a small capacity battery like the JVC is asked to deliver lots of power, it wears out much faster, it's life span is shortened.