New JVC GY-HM70 AVCHD Camcorder

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Found a review and test videos on a chinese website. You can also download the original testvideos!
I'm very impressed with the picture quality. Low light looks very good to me.

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[Randy Johnson]

$1999 was the list $1599 is the street price.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

I called a the local videostore here in Belgium. The GY-HM70 (E) will be in Europe at the end of june but is already sold out! The next of shipping will be in the middle of july!

Hope It will be sooner in the US for some reviews here .

[Tom Van den Berghe]

the first review of this camcorder

Good Price, Even Better Imagery: JVC?s GY-HM70 Is A Low-Cost, Highly Capable Camcorder | www.creativeplanetnetwork.com

I ordered earlier this week mine one. After reading the review I'm glad I did it.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Sooner as expected my HM70 arrived in the store. Today I bought it!
I could choose beween this JVC and a demo model from the sony NEX-EA50

The sony was not for point and shoot so I choosed the JVC. But I was curious to seet he sony.
The sony was better balanced on my shoulder but I found it a strange build camcorder. A bit ugly.

The build quality of the JVC is more plastic feel but I found the sony also.

I did a quick test between the JVC and the sony HXR-NX5 (my older camcorder) at home
I set the AGC limit to 12db on the sony and the both looked the same amount of noise in low light.
That's a result that makes me happy.

Will upload some videos soon.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

here is a short movie how the JVC looks against the sony HXR-NX5
The side by side test between these 2 camcorders is already done but will upload it later when finished.

JVC GY-HM70E on Vimeo

[Tom Van den Berghe]

some footage between the JVC and sony HXR-NX5

http://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id...rer=watch&ns=1

[Petter Flink]

The link is your edit link.
Here's a correct one for viewing without being loged in.

JVC GY-HM70 vs SONY HXR-NX5 - YouTube

[Noa Put]

The jvc definitely looks sharper then the nx5, only in the indoor shots it looked softer, thing is if you put the camera in auto you have no clue what it's doing or why it was being softer. Btw, does your wife know the whole world can see her do that funny dance? :)

I"d suggest to take the camera out whenever you have got the free time and do some fun stuff like I did with my nex-ea50: (My Sony nex-ea50 videos | Sony nex ea50 user blog) and take your time to control it, that's the best way to see what it is capable off.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Noa,

yes my wife knows that people can see her funny dance. Normally you can only see the this vidoe with the link. The video is hide for public searches.

The NX5 was without preset so the sharpness is maybe below normal. In low light I don't knw if the JVC looks softer. I will upload some footage like you did with your NEX-EA50.

[Petter Flink]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

The jvc definitely looks sharper then the nx5, only in the indoor shots it looked softer, thing is if you put the camera in auto you have no clue what it's doing or why it was being softer. Btw, does your wife know the whole world can see her do that funny dance? :)

I"d suggest to take the camera out whenever you have got the free time and do some fun stuff like I did with my nex-ea50: (My Sony nex-ea50 videos | Sony nex ea50 user blog) and take your time to control it, that's the best way to see what it is capable off.

Yes the Sony do looks softer and with more purple CA towards the corners in the wide end and all over the image while zoomed in.
In auto mode the Sony have a longer shutter speed and the JVC which almost looks as if it is set to some sport-mode.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Made a new movie with some new random test footage from this camcorder.
The latest part is some low light stuff. Very impressed it's stills looks so good in low light.

JVC GY-HM70 test footage on Vimeo

The original footage is off course much better but vimeo encodes my 50p footage.
The footage is NOT corrected in post!

[Tom Van den Berghe]

still no other user who also bought this camcorder?

I did already a lot of various shooting. Also shot a concert and still pleased with the low light footage.
Off course there is some noise but it's acceptable. Viewed on blu ray and it looks still good. Maybe a less sharp but still sharp enough for "normal" viewers (like my wife)

There is some purple fringing when full zoomed in outdours (around white backgrounds). My wife didn't noticed it. After I showed her she noticed it.

Mostly I shoot without OIS and use the 16x zoom (on a tripod) I walked and filmed without OIS and still wasn't too shaky.

At this moment the best (cheapest) price/quality shoulder camcorder.

[Stefan Szczuka]

Maybe some of you are interested in another opinion about the JVC GY-HM70.

As a long time user of a JVC GY-HD5000 and general believer in shoulder-mounted camcorders I just had to get another of those "bulky" cameras.
Even if most of the shoots I do now are scripted scenes I do with a Canon 5D MkIII, there are still some occasions that I need to do ENG style shooting and yes, I admit it, some clients just count on the "professional" look of your gear.

For some time I had the original "plastic beast", the Sony HVR-HD1000 and my main problem with that was that it only had one ring to control focus OR aperture, not both at the same time. Well, at least not without going into some menus.
So having two separate controls was essential for me and the JVC GY-HM70 has just that, the normal focus ring and a small wheel that can control aperture and other things as well, but more on that later. This fact was also the number one reason not to get Panasonic's new shoulder mounted Camcorder, the AG-AC8. Some of the features on that camera look very promising, like the very advanced image stabilizer.
I had the chance to test both the JVC and the Panasonic at IBC and talked to a Panasonic rep and he confirmed to me that the AG-AC8 just has one ring that you can assign to one function at a time and although it has some cursor buttons on the body, you cannot control aperture with them. The Panasonic guy told me "Oh, well, they must have forgotten that..."
So the case was clear and I took the chance to buy the JVC GY-HM70 as a bundle with a second battery for a very good price here in Germany and to say it clear, I really like it so far.

If you have ever wondered, why the viewfinder on the JVC has a cable that connects it to the body even if you can't detach the viewfinder, well, there is a reason for that. It's because you can extend the viewfinder horizontally and pull it out further away from the body. I am now using it extended to full length (which is only about 1,5 centimeters, but it's much more comfortable that in the normal postion).

The wheels work like expected, you can even cycle thru 3 white-balance presets with the small wheel on the side and do a manual white-balance without going to the menues. I always use the camera in full manual mode with a fixed shutter speed and control the iris with the small wheel. Small annoyance though, after turning the camera off and on again, you have to activate the iris function for the wheel again, it stays in manual mode but you have to activate it again, but that is only a small problem.

Image wise I can only say "wow", this camera produces a very clean picture in normal lighting conditions. Without gain there is barely noticeable noise in the pictures and this camera has the JVC-typical nice colors out of the box, which is also quite important, because you can't adjust any further image parameters.

My number one problem with this camera is the gain function. You can only turn it "on" or "off" in the menue, you don't have any manual control over how much gain the camera applies to the image, so it's always on AGC... What I don't understand is, why JVC doesn't allow setting the amount of gain in video mode, BUT the function is there in sill-mode... Yes, when shooting stills you can set the gain in the menu in ISO-Steps, but not in video mode. In video mode it has to be either on or off. So, JVC, why? I still have hopes for a firmware update with that function.

I also noticed that the smallest aperture you get is F5.6, you can't close the iris further. This might have to do with JVC worrying that if you close the iris further, you would deal with diffraction and get a blurry picture, I don't know, but in sunny daylight I would have liked it to be able to close the iris a bit further.

For Audio I normally use an external mixer that i link to the camera via a Sennheiser Evolution wireless kit. At first I was worried, that you couldn't disable the audio AGC, because the only available options for audio level in the menu are "0", "-1" and "+1", but i tested it and "-1" was perfect for the output of the receiver and I didn't notice any AGC going on.

The menues are quite "childish" for a "pro" camcorder and I think they are a sign of the of consumer roots of this camcorder.

A strange thing I noticed was with the HDMI output of this camera. If I activate the zebra function in the menu, the striped areas which should only be vivible in the viewfinder are being output to the HDMI as well, even if character overlays are disabled in the menu. I think this is a bug and can be quite annoying in a live environment where I want zebra in the viewfinder but not on the actual output. Another call for a firmware update I guess.

The viewfinder itself is not very sharp or large but together with the focus assist I found it very easy to get the focus right. The zoom rocker seems to be a bit on the sensitive side, I find it hard to get a smooth start or stop with it, harder than with the Sony HVR-HD1000, but still useable. Zoom remote is possible via JVC's own system which unfortunately is not compatible with the LANC rocker I already have form Libec, so I could test if zooming with an external control ist smoother.

All in all I really like this camera, the handling in this pricing range of shoulder camcorders is the best I have encountered so far and the clean and beautiful pictures I get out of it should make me and my clients happy. I can posts some test shots if anyone of you is interested.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

finally another user who has this camcorder. The camcorder produces nice sharp footage with nice colors.
Outdoors you have some purple fringing when zoomed in on high contrasty backgrounds.
But strange this is worse on my computer than on my television. Don't know why?

You can not control the gain but I did lots of low lights tests and burnt this on a AVCHD dvd (like blu ray quality) and there is mostly no grain visible! Even when I zoomed in at 16x dynamic.

Mostly I set the exposure at -1 indoors because I have found the automatic gain is too bright in my eyes.

The footage is a bit softer indoors but I prefer that than the picture kicks in lot of grain.

Because I wear glasses the viewfinder is not easy for me to use. I use an external monitor (viltrox DC50)
and works great to focus.

The camcorder is plastic feeling but professional looking for most people. They think I work for a local television.

Overall I'm still happy with this camcorder considering it's price point. Now looking for a handycam that matches this closely. I think I will go same brand for matching easily the colors.