I would ague that one of the reasons why someone would choose this camcorder over the HC7, HV20 and the AG-HSC1U is because of the focusing ring. This is something everybody should get used to, not just professionals.
There are way to many situations you can get your self into where a focusing ring will be much better than having the camcorder focus itself because you’re the one who decides what should be in focus.

Using a Z1u to video tape certain events for a TV station with the focusing ring have gotten my footage to be excellent. I experimented once for several seconds videotaping a speaker walking back and forth because I was getting tired holding the camcorder with one hand and I noticed that the camcorder had a lot of trouble focusing just on the face.

My stock footage that I shot in the Azores nearly 2 year ago always had excellent focus because of the focusing ring of the HC1.

Their will be situations where a focusing ring must be used as well as situations where auto focusing much be used and having both is a very good thing.

I fully agree with you, but the problem is that it seems that the autofocus of this Everio HD is simply untrustable: and as you say it, an autofocus is required on some situations whatever is your level (professional or not).

For the moment, after having watched the first videos of this Everio HD, I consider that its focus must be piloted 100% of the time in manual mode: that's not any more the same story than to say 'having both', espacially for a non professional guy like me...

Quote:
but the problem is that it seems that the autofocus of this Everio HD is simply untrustable...

Personally I would like to think that JVC will undoubtably field a solid contender in this highly contested market. I look forward to a full production model in the hands of a professional to provide me with a much more solid evaluation of this camera.

I’m glad you brought that up because in another site that also had the HD7 in their hands made it clear that the unit they had wasn’t a final version so there is a good possibility that this version isn’t final either.

We're in April- last I read it was supposed to be released this month- any further info floating around on this cams release date?

Circuit City shows them in stock. And for $200 off. And today only another 10% off. So tempting!!!!!!!!!

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/JVC-H...oductDetail.do

Steve, the first user feedback on this forum is here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=91005

Pat

Thanks for the link- not so good news over there- posted my sad response as well.

My first day playing with HD7
 

I had this camcorder few hours now and shot about 1 hour of test footage with it, mainly bright daylight.
I was very enthusiastic about it, now slightly disappointed.
My first impression is that optical image stabilization is totally useless, makes things worse at 7-10x. When OIS is off the shake is smooth "natural", when it is on it becomes very erratic. It is obvious this camera can not be used without tripod! Shame on you JVC! At wide end OIS may help a little, but not sure. I just switched it off.
The files have extension *.TOD. There is a beautiful promo sample video on camcorder, it looks superb, so it is capable to deliver in controlled environment. The promo video has extension *.TPD. Both can be played with VideoLAN or Media Player Classic without any problems, just associate the file extension. I did install the SW pack that came with camera, but had no time to play with it.
When you plug the camera into PC it appears as two removable drives, one for HDD and one for SD card. You can record video on HDD or SD - at least there is a menupoint to select SD as target, but I don't have an SD card right now.
It took me a little over a minute per gigabyte (70 seconds) to copy multiple clips I captured (that is without USB hubs, straight into PC to second empty HDD). It took me 11.5 minutes to copy 9.5 GBs of footage (13.95MBs per sec).
The build quality is great, the camera looks sweet. When on manual focus and tripod the image is sharp, but not razor sharp.
One thing that worries me is, but I assume t is the way VLC and MPC play the clip, is that it appears interlaced. When I pan, I can see the comb lines on vertical edges. Probably the old codec does not decode this new format properly. I will try the bundled SW and let you know how that looks.
The photo capability is nothing great, it produces files in the range of 600-800 KBs, resolution is the same as the video, quality is just like any frame of video, so I think I will not use it much (and I was not expecting to).
The lens exhibits pretty bad purple CA (tree branches against sky) several pixels wide, thin branches become blue. I was expecting greater lens from all that marketing blurb about Fujinon and broadcast bla-bla...
Just to demonstrate the OIS behaviour I posted an unaltered TOD file direct from camcorder, it has extension *.TOD. VLC and MPC play it fine, but I have CCCP installed (Combined Community Codec Pack) - maybe that is what handles it, don't know. Windows Media Player also playes them, but stopping after few frames here and there.
This was at 10x zoom, OIS on, me stable, both hands on camcorder, holding my breath (when I did not speak). I never seen this bad stabilization on any of my previous cameras, even electronic stabilization is better than this. OIS alone is making me wonder if I should keep the camcorder as occasionally I do shoot handheld...
The link (hope it will show fine in the post):
http://download_dot_yousendit_dot_com/E2567A90053A6C42
I checked my account and it said it has about 50 downloads left, so hurry and good luck. The service wants you to register (for free) before you can download anything...
Later I will post indoor lower light sample videos, but not unrealistically low light, just enough for reading at my desk.

Proper link
 

More samples
 

Please note this is not "proper" testing I just was eager to play with camcorder and see quickly what it has to offer. I am sure few days down the road, once I figured all tricks and read the manual I will be able to produce better quality footage.

Additional impressions. The battery does not last too long. I fully charged it for about 6 hours before starting to shoot and after I shot an hour and copied over to PC it was in red and showed 10% capacity left... Sure, I was playing a lot with controls, going through menu, etc. But in best case I believe it will last for two hours. This is the BN-VF815U type that shipped with cam, 1460 mAh, Li-ion. The cam is powered from stand-by state by opening the LCD sreen or pulling back the EVF.

As soon as you close the LCD or push viewfinder back - it powers itslef down. This is forcing you to use one of these displays, which drain about the same amount of energy, so you cannot extended the battery life when shooting stationary scene from a tripod by closing the LCD. Not good. At the same time I like the fact that as soon as I flip open the LCD the cam powers up and is ready to shoot within a second or two! The power supply plug into cam is a proprietary type, so you will have to buy a JVC PSU if you need an extra one.

The viewfinder will not angle, it only goes straight back, so only can shoot from eye level with EVF.

The cam has all manual controls I wanted, very nice, menu is easy to navigate, a lot of buttons, all easily accessible (I tried Canon HV20 and could not push any of the important buttons without repositioning my hand). The only function I could not locate so far is the exposure lock. There is this Bright control, which controls the gain, but it also drifts automatically when the overal brightness changes, it just remains let's say -2 steps below the "proper" exposure, whatever the cam thinks it is based on overal brightness.

All sample videos are straight from camcorder, no editing or conversions. The files will be available for 7 days or 100 downloads.

Video shot from tripod, manual focus, OIS off, 10x zoom, the shake in beginning and the end is when I pressed the REC button, this is a follow up to my previous video shot handheld (turtles):
http://download.yousendit.com/E232BCD634C9B909

Flower, same as above, in the shade of house late afternoon, see the out of focus areas, nice:
http://download.yousendit.com/9421FD010316A693

I have a lot more samples to post, but the upload is real slow because I only have the slowest free account on yousendit...

Will post some more tomorrow.

So the question in my mind right now is: should I keep it or return? I have two weeks to find the answer. I like a lot this camera, but was expecting more from "pro" lens. The sensor is good enough. Assuming I can prove that it is in fact progressive. On another post someone mentioned that this camcorder is 1080i not 1080p. I read it differently. I think based on info I could gather that the progressive frame is devided into two halves to be recorded in an interlaced way for compatibility issues. But the editing software should be able to reconstruct the progressive image without any loss or conversion. I think i vs p would be the thing that will push in one direction or other. I will never accept an interlaced HD cam, I would rather wait.

Good night,
Tibor

I have not seen a JVC camera with good battery life. The DV500 sucks near 20W, the GY-DV300 doesn't last 2 hours on a 428 battery, the HD100 & Later don't last 50min on a JVC battery.

This 815U battery, is it the same mount as the 428/438 batteries? or is it a smaller even more consumerish mount battery.

http://www.jvc.com/presentations/eve...lid=MPEverioHD

"The 1920x1080i picture you get at the camera is maintained for recording, with no conversion to degrade the full native resolution."

So the native resolution is no longer P but I? I doubt you can de-interlace it with no loss in resolution but you got plenty to waste.

HD7 i vs p
 

Peter, I don't know for sure. I need to spend few hours with different editing SW to find this out. First to shoot proper test footage. Just don't have time.

My understanding is, that it is progressive. The progressive frame is divided only for recording into two halves. This way older player and editors can import footage as if it would be interlaced. Supposedly newer editors and players should recognize that it is a progressive footage stored interlaced, so they put together the lines into the same frame resulting a progressive frame identical to original captured one. This is how I read it. There is no deinterlacing involved, simply copying pixel data in the proper place. So image information is not lost.

If my tests will show that this is in fact an interlaced imager - I will return the cam without a hesitation.

If this camera were 1920x1080p I would think they would want to yell to the hilltops about it, rather than saying only 1080i everywhere:

http://www.jvc.com/press/index.jsp?u...m=565&pageID=1

But I may be mis-interpreting your comments (I'm not a professional).

Erik