Customer Reviews

JVC GRD70 MiniDV Camcorder with 2.5" LCD, 16x Optical Zoom and SD/MMC Card Slot

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

For the price, I would say that the camera is worth it.
There's not much else to choose from in the price range.

Pros:
Cheap, lightweight, small, 16x zoom.

Cons:
Grainy, especially in low light, menus and features could
be better, still picture worthless.

Details:
The video in low light is grainy. Even in bright outdoor
light the image shows grain. There are 3 gain options
-- none, AGC and Auto-A. Using none, there is little grain,
but colors are washed. AGC is unacceptably grainy, and
Auto-A is a little grainy, but colors are bright. I've been
shooting in Auto-A.

Stills are not only noisy, but resolution is poor. I feel
the packaging is very misleading in this regard. The camera
advertises a 680k CCD and 1024x768 still resolution. The
1024x768 still image, according to the manual, is actually shot
in 720x480 resolution and interpolated upwards. That's actually
only using half the available CCD pixels. They should have
used the full 680k for the 1024x768 image. This pretty much
means you will get the best results using 640x480 mode and
interpolating yourself (interpolating 720x480 to 1024x768 is
lossy, and there are better enlarging methods than what they
use).

The menus are too complicated for the features they control.
I would like to know how the arpature, shutter speed and gain
are being controlled, and control these myself for the best
image quality. The automatic settings for each of these don't
do the best job. It's also not easy to get to these settings
on the fly -- the single wheel control and menus are difficult
to traverse while shooting.

The image stabilization works well in bright light. It doesn't
seem to work as well in Auto-A (auto arpature) setting for some
reason. This is a problem because Auto-A produces a better
image than AGC or no-gain. I'd like to use Auto-A and get
good image stabilization too.

Night alive is almost useless. Basically it slows the shutter
speed way down to capture more light. When you use it you get
nothing but motion blur. I wish they had manual controls of the
shutter, arpature and gain because this would allow me to
produce a better nighttime image. I did use the Night Alive
setting to take a still photo in the dark using a tripod, and
this produces the least grain of any mode.

Compared to the 30U and 90U models -- I'd almost recomend the
30U since the still quality of the 70u and 90u is not good.
The 90U has a larger LCD screen but the size of the 30u and
70u is good enough. The 90u comes with an 8mb memory card,
but if you are going to use the memory card, you will buy a
larger one anyways and end up not using the 8mb card. The
70u comes with a remote control which I will use (so I can
be in the video -- like at Christmastime)

Wishlist:
1) Use the full CCD for stills.
2) Manual shutter speed (min currently is 1/60th, but if it
could be set to 1/30th this could vastly improve indoor
stills and video. 1/15th could work well for extreme dark
lighting.) Along this vein, an arpature and a shutter
priority mode would be nice.
3) Progressive scan video.
4) Direct access controls to arpature, shutter, and gain -
the menus are too difficult to fumble through and the
naming in the menus are not easy to figure out what they
do.
5) Titles and ***Date/Time*** capability on firewire capture.
6) Use full CCD for video capture -- this would disable the
stabilization, but could produce a brighter, more
accurate image.

I am happy with the camera but my experience was different from "An Electronics Fan" from Bend, Oregon.

I tried to use the camera with a SanDisk 128mb SD card. I the resulting image looked like video noise. I thought the camera was defective, but a replacement unit showed the same result.

I have since located a 32mb SD card, and the unit works fine with it. I am trying to find some 64mb cards, but it seems like retail stores are mostly carrying the larger capacity sizes. If you plan on making heavy use of the digital still capability, you might want to stock up on the lower capacity cards.

I have had this camera for about 2 years. Worked great until about 6 months ago. When i would turn the camera on I would get a message that said "STOP CONDENSATION" it would last for a little while then the camera would work OK. As time went on, the message appeared more often and lasted longer. Now, it's hard to even use the camera, it works 1 out of every 25 times i turn it on. JVC won't respond to e-mail's and i have done everything to fix it that i have read on the internet. I cannot take it to a service center because they want $100 to just look at it and i think I can get a brand new one that hopefully will work for about $200. But you better believe it won't be a JVC.

JVC recommends using a 64mb SD or MMC memory card for this camcorder. Please note that a 64mb card with this camcorder will give you a little over 200 pics.

JVC stated that any SD or MMC card that was bigger than 64mb may cause distortion and is not recommended.

Well, that was a bit disturbing, considering that I had recenty purchased a PNY 256 mb SD card. (which I was half tempted to return)

Regardless of the what I was told, I attempted the use of the PNY card. Sure enough, it worked fine. Pictures can be a bit grainy, but it is certainly not any worse than the 64 mb MMC card I tried.

By the way, the PNY 256 mb SD card will take 818 pics.

Low light image is sub standard, but what can you expect for the price. Sadly the CCD blew up 30 days after 1 year warranty expired. It will be cheaper to replace than fix.

I'm not buying another JVC to be sure!

I purchased this model in the June of 2003 and by May 2004 it is in Safeguard mode. I was extremely careful with it and used it a moderate amount. After researching in google a bit, I found hundreds of others complaining about the same problem not only for this camera but for other JVC models - some people are even organizing a class action lawsuit. The camera - without this problem, was decent, but I recommend getting a removable mic because all of my footage has recorded the camera whir - a problem you'll have with about any built in mic. I highly recommend staying away from JVC!

I owned a JVC GR-D33US camcorder for a little over a year and the CCD sensor just went out on it and it gives a "lens cap" error message even with lens cap OFF. Not a good product if it only lasts for a little over a year!

my name is kevin, and i am a 16 year old skateboarder. originally i asked for this camera to film skate videos of my friends and i skateboarding. for a while, it worked well, the resolution was excellent, it was easy to use, and everything seemed to work as it was supposed to. after about a half a year though, the camera gave me a humidity error report. i also noticed that many screws and bolts were loose and falling out. this was strange because i treated the camera well, and made sure everyone who handled it did so with care. but, i live in louisiana so i figured it was just the region. so, i got the camera fixed for what turned out to cost around 200 dollars. well, after only a month, the humidity report returned, but after placing it by a fan for 2 days, it resumed working. it is then that the top peice fell off. i put it back in, but lacked any screws to secure it. finally, a few weeks ago, the camera stopped working entirely. this camera has wasted enough of my time and money, i'm now moving to the higher quality panasonic models. i warn everyone who plans to use this camera on a regular basis DO NOT BUY JVC, especially this model. i would recomend the superior sonys or the also superior and more cost friendly panasonic models.

bought the jvc grd70 it worked for a couple months then started getting condensation operation paused message its a great camera if you don't want evidence of your kids birthday parties or sporting event missed out on a lot of memories because of this junk camera

I got mine on sale for really cheap a few years ago, about $250. At the time, it was a steal for a mini dv camera. After about a year, it had a problem loading/ejecting the tape. Then it completely stopped working. It is frustrating to buy something that breaks. Also, it was terrible in low lighting situations. I would recommend saving your money for a better camera. In other words, the cost vs quality isn't worth it in the end.