JVC Everio Hard Drive Camcorder - Everio MG77

Hard Drive Camcorder

records over 37 hours of Internet quality video onto the built-in 30 Gigabyte hard drive

By Mark Shapiro    

 The Everio series of camcorders from JVC are very unique. Not only are they extremely tiny, they record video onto a hard drive, not a DV tape or a DVD.

In addition to capturing great looking video, they capture high resolution (2 MB) still images on the hard drive or a secure digital card.

The Everio camcorders convert the captured audio and video directly to a MPEG2 format which is recorded onto the hard drive as a file.

This has some advantages and disadvantages.   

The advantages are that you can record a lot of video onto that hard drive. At UltraFine, you can record over SEVEN hours of DVD quality video. At the lowest quality level, Economy, you can record over 37 hours of Internet quality video and audio.  

That’s a lot of video. A typical DV tape cassette in a DV camcorder only records for an hour. A DVD camcorder, recording at top quality on a 1.2 GB DVD-RW, only provides about 20 minutes of recording time. To get the 7 hours of recording time provided by the Everio hard disk, would require about 22 DVD-RW disks.

 However, this advantage of having 7 or more hours on a hard drive can also be a disadvantage. Once you have filled up the hard drive, now what are you going to do? As you cannot remove the filled up drive, you need to either erase the video, transfer it in small chunks via the SD card, or transfer it to another medium.

 You could play back the video via the Everio’s analog video and audio connectors and record it back to tape or burn it to a DVD using a DVD recorder. However, to transfer and record 7 hours of video, will take at least seven hours, not including changing the blank tapes or DVDs.

 However, the best option is to use the Everio’s USB 2 cable to transfer the video from the Everio to your computer’s hard drive. Because you are transferring digital files and not playing video, this process can go a lot faster than real time. It all depends on your computer.

 If you plan on transferring the entire 30 GB of video, you will need 30 GB of empty storage space on your computer. Do you have 30 Gigs of extra space? 

So beware – this promise of almost endless captured video can be an evil temptress. JVC needs to develop an economical and reliable way to use removable hard drives with this kind of camcorder.

If you are looking for a camcorder that works well, is very compact and ideally suited for both family and web video applications, you need to take a look at the new Everio GZ-MG555 hard drive camcorder from JVC. Record SEVEN hours or more! Read the Review

 B&H is now offering a GREAT price on the Everio MG-77

Image Quality 

At the Ultrafine setting, the captured video looked comparable to most other consumer level DV camcorders. Even the next setting down, Fine, looked pretty good. It wasn’t until I dropped down to Normal and Economy modes that I truly began noticing artifacts and fuzziness. 

Even with the small 1/3.6” CCD, the camcorder seemed to handle the extremes of light and dark quite well. I found the color adjustment on the camcorder to be a bit too hot, a bit too saturated for my taste. However, that setting made colors truly snap and jump. I’m sure that many people will like the color settings.

 Maybe too tiny?

The Everio is tiny. I mean really tiny. Personally, I found it a bit too small for my large man fingers. About 3 x 3 x 5 inches in size, it can easily slide into a purse or large coat pocket.

 The Everios come with a variety of zoom ratios. The Everio MG70 that I tested only had a 10x optical zoom. It did offer two levels of digital zoom – but like most digital zooms, it just made everything very blurry as you magnified the shot. Other Everio models ship with more impressive zoom ratios. For example, the MG20 and MG30 offer 25x of optical zoom.

 Amazingly enough, JVC has managed to squeeze in various manual control, effects and other bells and whistles into this tiny camcorder. The MG70 enables you to set exposure, backlight compensation, white balance, shutter speed and manual focus.  However, to manually focus, you have to use the menu control dial buttons. Push in, push out back and forth until you get the focus right.. This is not an elegant way to focus.

 Editing the Video

 JVC has bundled in a video editing and DVD authoring package from CyberLink. Even though they are light versions, they provide an easy to master way to extract the video from the camcorder, edit it together with titles, effects and transitions, and then burn the final project to a DVD or save it as a video file.

 If you already have video editing software that works with mpeg files, you can just drag and drop the video files from the camcorder to your local hard drive, change the program suffix from MOD to JPG and you should be able to edit. 

 If you are using a Mac, the package comes with the Pixela Capty MPEG Edit EX software.

The Everios all include a feature that speedily parks the hard drive record head if you drop the camcorder. As the unit leaves your fingers while taping, it senses the zero g situation and very quickly parks the hard drive so it won’t get damaged. Yes, the camcorder might be smashed but the hard drive, and video, should still be in good shape.

  The Everio is not perfect

The auto focus seemed very slow to focus to close objects.  Also, when I recorded video and audio in a very quiet environment, the AGC (automatic gain control) boosted the audio so much that it was picking up the sound of camcorder’s electronics – especially the sound of the zoom motor.  On top of that, there is no external mike connection. You are stuck using the built-in camcorder microphone. However, it works adequately for most typical home situations.

The ability to shoot over seven hours of video without worrying about re-loading the camcorder is very exciting. I could shoot all day long, as long as I had power, and would not have to carry empty videotapes or blank DVDs. 

Despite the fact is a bit too small for my hands, I found that after a few hours, I was able to use my fingertips to zoom and operate the controls. I strongly recommend this camcorder – if, and only if, high quality audio recording is not essential.