New JVC-GZ-MC500 Anybody seen one yet or getting one?

[Gareth Reast]

If anyone has any information about one of these, current review or ownership I would be interested in hearing about it. I am particularly interested in it's low light capabilities over it's '200' stablemate which has been noted as poor.


'The new GZ-MC500 Digital Media Camera is the newest member of the JVC Everio family - the only currently available camcorders that record onto a hard disk. Like the single-CCD Everio camcorders launched last fall, the GZ-MC500 records 60 minutes of DVD-quality video or thousands of photo-quality stills to a Microdrive removable hard disk. With this newest Everio, JVC combines these benefits with 3-CCD/5-megapixel performance.

The use of three CCDs combined with advanced pixel shift technology allows the GZ-MC500 to deliver 5 megapixel-class digital stills with a maximum size of 2560 x 1920 pixels, and a broadened dynamic range when recording still or moving images. The result is naturally sharp, vivid color, good contrast and clean mages or videos with good low light performance.

The benefits of recording video to a hard disk are the same benefits that have made hard disk-based audio players so popular - random access to quickly locate desired material, the ability to effortlessly delete unwanted material, and easily rearrange playback sequence. What's more, there's no danger of mistakenly recording over something you want to keep'.

[GaryB]

You probably won't find anyone with one yet. The first stocks only went out to dealers late last week and should be available about now.

[Spie]

Well I've got one

[Gareth Reast]

Lucky devil!

Would you give us all some honest feedback when you have time? I hadn’t realised it was so small – amazing.

best of luck


Gareth

[Spie]

Originally Posted by Gareth Reast

Lucky devil!

Would you give us all some honest feedback when you have time? I hadn’t realised it was so small – amazing.

best of luck


Gareth

OK, as you can see it's very small. This is great for portability but makes it a little fiddly and shakey in use. Video quality is excellent and although I haven't done much in low light conditions there's no cause for concern in that area at this stage. Still photo quality is surprisingly good to and audio nquality is fantastically crisp.

If you are looking for a tapeless, super-compact camcorder then you should really take a look at the GZ-MC500, especially if like me you spend half your life behind a PC.

[Gareth Reast]

Does it have any built in ‘anti shake’ capability to help? I understand that it has USB – is this to just download stills-I have not seen if it has firewire port (you will gather I have a Mac) are you able to write back to the disk as you would on a conventional DV tape machine?


regards

[Spie]

Originally Posted by Gareth Reast

Does it have any built in ‘anti shake’ capability to help? I understand that it has USB – is this to just download stills-I have not seen if it has firewire port (you will gather I have a Mac) are you able to write back to the disk as you would on a conventional DV tape machine?

Yes it does have an anti-shake facility which is set to "on" by default. I'm guessing it would be quite bad without it.

USB is used to transfer and view movies as well as stills. This is one of the main reasons I bought it. Each movie scene is saved as a .MOD file which must be the same as an .mpg file because if you rename them they play in Windows Media Player 10. Annoyingly WMP10 will not display 16:9 movies in widescreen mode. Supplied PowerDVD software will though.

There is no Firewire port although the AV port looks suspiciously like one. Outputs to S-Video/SCART though so can't be.

Hmmm, write back to Disc? Can't see why not but not tried it.

Hope this helps.

[Paul D]

That is small!
I hate the thought of carrying a camcorder everywhere, but that wouldn't be too bad.

How much are they?

[Spie]

They are being advertised from £850 to over a grand.

Oh by the way, I have big hands

[steve36]

I was waiting for this one but was a little nervous about buying before seeing a review of it's low light as occasionally it would be good to use it indoors.
The old model - MC200 was supposedly quite good outdoors but indoors next to useless.

Steve.

[steve36]

Spie,
How good is it's still performance - ie autofocus/exposure.
I like the idea of a 5MP camera+camcorder in one, if only it was also a phone!

Steve