Looks good with alot of light (:
 

Ok so I put the camera to the tests in low light indoors and it is not good. I will say for outdoor use the camera is fine howver for indoor shoots at night or in low light you will need some good lighting. My Canon XH A1 that I sold had cmos chips which are much better in low light. Secondly I am disappointed in the 17x1 Fujinon lens . Its just marginally better than the 16x1. It could be that his camera just needs more light too! I even shot some footage indoors in the daytime and I saw lots of noise . Now remember i put it through tests in low light . I will need to set up diiferent looks to see if I can get better results tomorow. i will post some of the clips later if someone tells me how . Yes agc was off ! Camera is equivalent to a 250 ASO or so digital camera in sensitivity. I will test it more tomorrow.

Doug

Hi Doug,

The A1 has CCD chips...

yes
 

I was thinking of my canon hv-30 which looks better than my new JVC HM 700 (:

Yikes. I don't know if I should feel good about my hv30's or bad because the 700 isn't very sensitive...

lol
 

Hopefully I will have better results tomorrow

Doug

I purchased an HV30 for my personal use. I tested it inside our local church yesterday, very dark and no lights on. Result much cleaner picture and no noticable noise. Certainly performed far better in low light than my XH-A1 (when both were compared, played back through a 42" HD panel). . Perhaps we should all forget the more expensive cams, and buy 3 or 4 consumer models for multicam shoots. How technology marches on. I am hoping to test the HM100 out as soon as it is released, but with 1/4" CCDs I am not holding my breath.

In my limited testing at night I would hazard a guess that the noise levels in the lower-IRE range of the HM700 are about the same (maybe slightly better) as the HD200 series. I don't have a HD200 here right now so I can't make an empirical comparison.
However, I am able to get some good exposure in extremely low light by increasing the gamma instead of gain, especially with the filmout curve.

I have some time today so maybe I'll collect and upload some of my tests. At 35mbps my test of the various curves, stretch levels and gain total 1GB!

I surely would like to see that, Tim! I went to see my local JVC vendor. And I have to say that I fell in love with this camera. The focus assist functions beat any handheld I've tried. I just love it! They are going to lend me one, hopefully next week. Can't wait to try it out!

There's a reason consumer camcorders have switched to CMOS -- it's a way of getting the low-light sensitivity we used to get from 3 CCD DV prosumer camcorders in an HD camcorder. However, the price to paid are the downsides of CMOS: disruption from photo-flashes and rolling shutter. Things consumers typically don't care about.

So you have a choice to make. And, the choice includes which camera has the controls you need?

And, let's assume Pana introduces a much improved HVX200 with 1280x720 chips and AVCIntra. You get yet another choice -- EZ to edit MPEG-2 or AVCIntra.

PS: it is interesting that some obvious design choices have been ignored. Why did Sony design such an ergonomic nightmare as the EX1? Why use SxS when we now know SDHC works just as well? (OK -- we know the answer is $$$ for Sony.)

Why did Pana -- now that SDHC Flash is REALLY cheap -- not use a DVCPRO HD+ format that offered offered FullHD at 422? Why go with AVCIntra ? And, why use SD chips in an HD camcorder?

And, JVC -- now that Sony has shown 1/2 chips fit in a small form-factor camera -- why did you go with 1/3-inch? And, why 1/4-inch chips when small camcorders have long been able to fit three 1/3-inch chips?

And, Canon isn't immune. It's quasi-shoulder mount camcorders could have been packaged so they rested fully on the shoulder like Sony's DSR-250. Canon used to make a nice GL-1 and GL-2. Now they make either consumer stuff with no manual adjustments or ungodly expensive stuff that still uses tape.

It's almost as if each company purposely makes decisions that I doubt it's customers would make. (Like no VF.)

So, should I cancel my order for the HM100 or not? I figure I have about a week left to avoid all the hassle of receiving it, trying it, and sending it back.

I've already got Sony batteries, two types of Canon batteries, AB batteries, and V-mount batteries. Do I need the JVC batteries, as well?

Seeing as the HM700 may not be much of an improvement over the HD200 for low light situations, I am beginning to really doubt that the HM100 is going to turn out an adequate picture in natural light interior and semi-interior situations -- and what is the point of a small, surreptitious high-quality codec camera, if the picture is not good in natural light interior and semi-interior situations.

Of course, outside it would be fine, but is highlight control and contrast range going to be any better than the quite capable HV20/30/40 in a spontaneous and fluid situation?

well
 

You guys are right about that . We should already have cameras that are more cost effective and its seems cameras of later years were better. With the advent of HD HDV and more its seems we have more confusion and the cost of p2 cards and sonys cards thats why I went with the 700. Am I picky ? Yes I think when you spend over 8000 you have a right to want something thats good. In the mean time I will probably keep it so I can make money since I have work which is good . And what other camera
would I get ? Maybe the scarlet if it was available

Steve Mullen should be on the board of every camera manufacturer on earth as Global President, Common Sense.

Perhaps we should reverse the market dynamic. At the moment the companies dangle their offerings in front of us and we hand over our cash despite all the built-in flaws. Maybe we should dangle our cash in front of them until they respond with what we really need. A camera that...... (in fewer than 30 words).

Ah, well I guess this was coming, soon as I saw Tim's footage of his kids running in the forest I sorta new.
It's a real pity that there wasn't more "noise" made about the 200 series, maybe then, surely, JVC would have listened and made this a priority, well they fixed one major headache,workflow in the post environment, but apparently picture quality ain't that big a concern, sounds great though 35meg, 1080, xdcam ex codec.

I just don't get it, my 101 is virtually noiseless, what happened, did the 101 have sony ccd technology and sony got pissed that jvc might get too successful and left jvc to use their own technology which resulted in the 200 series?

Anyway, it is still a great camera, great form factor, but if only....

Amen brother! For my purposes, JVC gets closer to what I want and need. I wish JVC would do a clone of the Canon HV30 that does 24p in 720p HDV on SD cards for $500. I would pick up 5 of them for my band shoots and place them around the stage for cutaways. Maybe I'll just break down and pick up a half dozen Canon HV30's and cross convert at home in my NLE.

well things are better today
 

I was able to get some new looks that I created by going into the menus . Finding the sweet spot of the lens dialing down the detail to -7 and so on .My results are much better and I feel confident at the shoot on Wednesday. The jury is still out for me on low light capabilities but I still am dialing in the settings and it does look better. I haven't tried the white shading for the lens yet so thats next. I think at this stage i will keep the
camera since there are no other cameras I see yet! (maybe scarlet ?)

Doug