MaximumPC 2006 01

4 MA XIMUMPC JANUARY 2006

JVC Everio GZ-MG70U

Have hard drive, will travel

W

hen it comes to the cost of consum-

ables, camcorders aren’t nearly as bad

as photo printers, but the cost of tapes and

discs does add up. So the appeal of JVC’s

new line of DV cams that record to an inte-

grated hard drive is obvious: There’s nothing

else to buy, and nothing else to carry.

The Everio GZ-MG70U, reviewed here,

packs a 1.8-inch 30GB hard drive that’s

capable of recording more than seven hours

(430 minutes) of video at its highest resolu-

tion. You can also use the hard drive to store

up to 9,999 still images at 1600x1200 resolu-

tion. In light of this DV cam’s massive capac-

ity, however, it’s mystifying that JVC chose

not to build in a FireWire interface—users are

left to suffer with a USB 2.0 port.

But using a hard drive for storage is

not without its problems: Chief among

these is battery consumption (the JVC’s

battery conked out after just 53 minutes

of continuous use). Noise is an even more

troublesome issue—the unmistakable

sound of the hard drive’s read/write heads

contaminated quiet clips.

This camera had less of a blooming

problem with bright whites than Hitachi’s DZ-

GX20A (next page), but other colors appeared

more washed out. The JVC had a diffi cult time

producing fully saturated reds and oranges.

You can disable auto focus on the camera’s

10x optical-zoom lens, but using manual focus

entails mashing buttons.

The Everio records in MPEG-2 format, but

for some strange reason, it appends a MOD

extension to the VOB fi les it creates. Once we

changed the fi le extensions to VOB, we had

no trouble loading segments into a variety of

video-editing programs.

The built-in hard drive is innovative, but

the intrusive noise it generates is annoying.

And there are several features JVC neglected

to include, including a viewfi nder, an acces-

sory shoe, and FireWire. Considering the price

tag, we expected the GZ0MG70U to be a

much better camera.

Canon Optura 50

A little chunky, but packed with features

C

anon’s Optura 50 bears the dubious dis-

tinction of being the heaviest consumer

camcorder in this roundup, weighing a portly

1.26 pounds. And although those extra ounc-

es translate into extra features, the Optura ulti-

mately falls well short of Kick Ass territory.

The Optura 50’s 10x optical zoom lens

was the only one in this roundup to feature

optical, versus electronic, image stabiliza-

tion. Optical image stabilization manipulates

a prism to steady the image being recorded,

whereas the electronic method manipulates

the image itself. The difference was notable

in our tests. We also appreciated the Canon’s

true manual focus ring, which is mounted right

where it belongs: on the lens.

Place the camera in Network mode and

you can use Canon’s DV Messenger software

and a USB cable to control the camcorder

using your PC—even over the Internet. Sweet!

This was the only camera with a viewfi nder

that not only extended out, but also pivoted

up, much like an old 4x5 fi lm camera. We

also appreciated the abundance of buttons

and dials that allowed us to print still images,

choose exposure modes, control the camera’s

tape-transport mechanism, and perform other

common tasks—all without being forced to

navigate a maze of menus.

Canon managed to squeeze in every I/O

port you can think of, too, including FireWire,

headphone, external mic, S-video, and A/V-

out. Do you have a bunch of analog tapes

in your closet? Plug your old camcorder or

VCR into the Canon and it will digitize the

material in real time and transfer it to your

PC over FireWire.

This MiniDV camera delivered video qual-

ity superior to the DVD-based Hitachi, the

hard drive-equipped JVC, and the fl ash mem-

ory-using Samsung. But the Optura 50 just

wasn’t as faithful to the source as Sony’s less-

expensive entry. The only other fl aw: During

quiet passages, you can clearly hear the whir-

ring motor driving the transport mechanism.

The Optura 50’s features far outnumber

its fl aws, but those fl aws weighed heavy on

our fi nal verdict.

Canon’s Optura 50 MiniDV cam-

corder had more features than

any camera in its class, including

a superior optical image stabilizer

and a viewfinder that pivots up as

well as slides out.

The JVC Everio GZ-MG70U has

a flip-out viewfinder, like all the

other consumer camcorders we

reviewed, but it can record up to

seven hours of video directly to an

internal 30GB hard drive.

CANON OPTURA 50

JVC EVERIO GZ-MG70U



RECORDING 30GB internal hard

MEDIA drive, SD memory card

LENS F1.8 - 2.2; 10x optical zoom; semi-

manual focus; electronic image

stabilization

IMAGE SENSOR 1/3.6-inch CCD with 1.2

megapixels in movie mode; 2.0

megapixels in still-image mode

ASPECT RATIO 4:3 or 16:9

I/O PORTS A/V out for TV, S-video out, USB 2.0

BATTERY LIFE 0:48 (hours:minutes)

SPECS

RECORDING MiniDV tape, SD memory card

MEDIA

LENS F1.8 – 2.8; 10x optical zoom; manual

focus ring; optical image stabilization

IMAGE SENSOR 1/3.4-inch CCD with 1.23

megapixels in movie mode; 2.0

megapixels in still-image mode

ASPECT RATIO 4:3 or 16:9

I/O PORTS Multipurpose 1/8-inch jack (stereo

headphone out, A/V out for TV), S-

video out, 1/8-inc mic input, FireWire,

USB 2.0

BATTERY LIFE 1:43 (hours:minutes)

SPECS



THE

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$1,000, http://www.jvc.com

$700, http://www.canon.com