Customer Reviews

JVC GRD90 MiniDV Camcorder with 3.5" LCD, 16x Optical Zoom, 8MB, and MMC

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The JVC GRD90 is, overall, a pretty good MiniDV camcorder. If you already know a lot about camcorders, skip to paragraph 2. If you are new to this area, continue reading below.

1--If you're looking for a video camera that you can use to edit video on your PC or MAC, then you need a digital camcorder that is IEEE-1394 compliant. You don't have to worry about remembering that, though...an easy name to remember is FireWire. This peticular camcorder meets those standards. Another thing you want to look for is Pixels...in this case, the higher the number, the higher the quality of the camera. This camera has decent video quality. However, especially when indoors, this camera's video image can get a bit grainy. If you are looking for a camera that has really good quality, I'd recommend something like the JVC GR-DV500. If you are simply looking for a digital video camera that will record Sally's band concert, then this is the camera for you. (Proceed to Paragraph 3)

2--this camera is IEEE-1394 compliant, making it suitable for video editing. However, it only has 680,000 pixels (0.68 megapixels), so if you are looking for a high-quality camcorder, I'd recommend shopping around for a camera with a least 1.0 megapixels. The DV port accepts both input and output, which will probably come in handy at some point in time. This is not a professional camcorder, so I do not recommend buying this is you are a professional videographer. If your budget is limited, however, this will do for your basic fliming and editing needs. (Proceed to Paragraph 3)

3--Another great feature that pros and amatures alike will enjoy is the big 3.5 inch screen. You might be thinking, '3.5 inches? That's tiny!'...however, you'll come to find that 3.5 inches is quite large for a camcorder LCD screen. Overall, this is a pretty good digital video camera, it's only major flaw being that some indoor shots may look incredibly bad. This camcorder is almost perfect...for the price.

Hi...I had been wanting this camera for such a long time, but didn't know if it was the right way to go. I looked at other reviews, and there were many complaints about terrible picture quality. That discouraged me, but when I went to Circuit City and tried it out, it was awesome! It is very stylish, and an excellent camera. Outdoors, the picture quality is excellent. Indoors it's excellent too, except when in low lighting conditions, the picture is slightly (and I mean very slightly) off-color. This (or so I believe) should only have impact on your choice if you're a professional (or really obsessed with perfect graphics...). The bad thing about this camera is the digital stills. I mean, they're not terrible, but you're much better off just buying a regular digital camera for those purposes (like myself). But that doesn't have any impact on my feeling toward the camera, because I don't plan on using it for still photos.

In conclusion, the JVC GR-D90US is an excellent, easy to use video camera that anyone can enjoy! This is a great buy!!!!

I just purchased this camcorder and love the 3.5" screen. I can video my kids at their eye-level instead of hovering over them. Compared to a 2.5" screen this is much easier to use.

The color quality is excellent, and the picture looks great on my 36" TV. I also have a new Macintosh computer and it plugged right in with the firewire and I can edit videos.

The stabilizer stays on in the automatic mode, which my old JVC didn't do.

I bought my JVC GRD90 last week.... which I promptly returned after few days. I got Sony's DCR-TRV19 instead.
JVC GRD90 claims that it's got all the nice features, yeah, maybe it does have the features, but the qualities are really bad. I'd rather get Sony's DCR-TRV19 which is in the same price range. Sony might have less features but they have better qualities....
For example, the night shooting of JVC GRD90, so called "night-alive" vision sucks... "night alive" is supposed to give you a colorful vision as to sony's green screened "night shooting", but trust me, you rather have a sony's quality green-screened night shooting than JVC's horrible horrible "night alive" shooting.
The pic qualities of JVC, especially in indoor or in low-light condition are very poor. Even in outdoor the images are very gray and dark.
The microphones aren't as good as sony's either.
Oh, and when i was buying this model at the good-guys store in emeryville, CA there were so many opened-box items of this model. I should have initially suspected as to why so many people returned this item.

I just bought this camcorder, thinking I got a really good deal for it. I took it home and wanted to try it out. Like the previous review said, "it does not shoot well indoors". Well, that is true! I took a few pictures indoors with the lights on (it was nighttime) and when I downloaded it to my computer, I saw that the pictures were very poor. It was fairly well-lit indoors, yet the pictures were very dark. The LCD display is very poor as well. When moving the camera, the image was very hazy and the resolution seemed poor. It also says that you can shoot at night. I tried taking a picture of my daughter in a dim room and even when I set it on "Twilight" the picture was very dark. The retail price for this model was ... and I got it at an even lower price because it was an open box model (sales person said there were no mechanical defects and there were only minor cosmetic flaws). It was not even worth that lower price. I will be returning it tomorrow. I advise anyone looking to shoot anything indoors, not to purchase this camcorder. I will be looking at other manufacturers.

I wanted a camcorder that had quiet motor noise and could shoot well indoors. The noise was acceptable but indoor shots were very grainy. You had to crank up the lamps in order to get an acceptable shot. Loved the 3.5" display though. Returned to CC and got the Canon ZR70. Returned that as well. Read review.

I've had the camera a bit over two months now. I have never been happy with the indoor lighting and never knew others felt the same way until I just read the other comments here. Last week I even wrote to JVC website support asking what setting I could change to fix it. Never heard back (ie: Poor customer service!).

So anyway, just buy a new computer with Firewire ports, and a DVD burner so I can use this camera to its max. But guess what? The firewire port does work right! I was able to transfer one hour of video after fighting a good 2 hours trying to get the PC to recognize the camcorder (all you should have to do is plug it in and turn it on!). But then today I wanted to transfer more video...can't figure out how to get it to respond again. It won't hook up. I've tried everything. Don't know if I can return it this late for my money back, and now will have to try JVC support again for help, which sounds like I won't get any. Don't buy!

I bought this hoping that i would get a decent camcorder that worked. Well unfortunately it worked for about two or three weeks and it died. The battery was fully charged and i took very good care of it, still it is now a paperweight, since i lost my reicept i'm out the cash. Don't make the same mistake i did. And the quality of the indoor shooting sucks as well

I bought this camera because it was cheaper than alot of the others and I thought JVC was a good name. WRONG! I rarely used it, the first few months. Since then, I have not been ABLE to use it! I get the error "PLEASE WAIT. CONDENSATION, OPERATION PAUSED." And I can't do a thing with it. Very upsetting to find out while in labor with my first child. I called JVC who tells me that they have not received that error with this particular model, just with others, and to take it to a service center. After some research online, other models do the same thing, and JVC tells them the SAME THING! Why must we spend money to get it fixed when it is obviously a malfunction JVC knows about and are doing nothing ot fix it.

I purchased this product based on JVC's reputation and the fact that I've used one of their VHS-C's for years. However, I was extremely disappointed with this unit. My JVC GR AX-910 VHS-C tapes, converted to digital via my ATI 8500DV video card to the hard drive, has a better picture quality than this digital camera. No joke.