Review of the JVC GR-DV3000.

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I've had the little beasty a few weeks now and it has exceeded most of my wishes so far.

Firstly from a Mac interfacing pov it is superb, DV instructions? Plug it in! All the camera functions work with iMovie and Final Cut. USB interfacing? Plug it in! Connecting the camera when in memory card mode automatically causes iPhoto to pop up and prompt you to import how ever many images it finds on the camera (I currently have a 128Mb memory card installed which if full would represent 100+ highest quality images). Clicking in the import button results in a quick download of the images, it took about 20 seconds to download 29 images averaging around 350Kb each.

(I can't attest to the PC interfacing as I haven't managed to get it to work yet, apparently the streaming USB driver doesn't like my PC setup)

Picture quality is superb although I was hoping for better low light quality. Yesterday I took about 30 minutes of footage at Monkey World and luckily the weather was really good, playing the footage back on TV later made me feel like David Attenborough. ;)

The downside is that as this model is attempting to be a half way house between point-and-shoot and pro models it doesn't have a very easy to use menu system for manual settings, in fact the things I want to be able to do really quickly, i.e switch between manual and auto focus or lock the aperture are possible but too fiddly. The controls are also too small for comfort and I don't have enormous hands, the record on/off button in particular is not very easy to reach and not very poositive in it's action so I have plenty of footage recorder of the lens cap going on because I hadn't pressed the button in far enough.

For tripod usage it is an excellent camera, the remote control works well and the very clear and large LCD display makes it possible to view from a distance without needing to mess around with external monitors (although if you had a portable Mac along side you can view it though DV).

Transferring from video through the camera to DV is easy and works well, so far I haven't been overly impressed with the quality but that has more to do with the video source (my 10 year old JVC analog camera) than the camera itself. When I get enough time to try it using my 4 head video recorder I may post an update.

Battery usage is advertised at around one hour and yesterday I ran one battery down for a return of about 30 minutes of video footage shot and around twenty stills. I carry one double capacity battery as spare at the moment but will be increasing that to four as soon as Amazon dispatches them, the batteries cost 25 UKP each btw and are Lithium-Ion units.

I paid 750 UKP for the camera and overall I'd say it is well worth the money.

Amen-Moses
 
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cool....


I have a JVC DVR as well. It works great for the price, and the quality is really good. I just gotta start using it more :)
 

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