JVC GR-DVL300U

I used the cam less than 6 months and the mother board went out,or so JVC says. Price to repair $536!! The glich in the warranty won't repair or replace the mother board... if there's water damage. Guess what the estimate,from JVC, stated was the cause of the problem.. WATER DAMAGE. All are wedding pictures and honeymoon vacation are on this digital format which requires the use of the cam to watch on TV or record to VHS. Of course we could rent a camcorded,but that's not the point. This is the first JVC product we've owned and the last.

Great clarity,easy to use.

Poor warranty,poor manufacture product quality, poor customer service. Estimate for repair took several weeks(8)

Customer service could care less about your problem.

I have used JVC products before including the original JVC VHS-C tube pickup camcorder used in the first Back to the Future movie in 1984. For such a little camera is has quite a few features that can be used for both recording and playback later including digital effects. I used this product for one month before I returned it. I would have kept it if I didn't decide I wanted a camera with an analog input. For the price of $800 Canadian on clearance this is a hell of a good price for such a mini DV camera. I used this camera in dark situations and the picture does get rather grainy, lack of contrast, and has focus problems with it shifting in and out. The viewfinder is too small to really see any detail including focus or not. I don't like the idea of pressing several buttons just to put something into manual mode like focus or iris. And once set it is slow to use in manual. A front focus ring would have been better. Shooting water shots in telephoto I noticed again the focus hunts around in and out of focus slightly. The viewfinder seems to show skin tones as rather red, but on tv its fine. I find the iris is set a little high for some shots. I did notice some motion artifacts after using on Maxell DV tape such as picture breakup. The camera worked wll with my Pinnacle Studio DV capture board in my computer. Also downloading stills from the camera was easy enough, but the resolution is low because of the chip limitation. The camera is way too light for steady hand holding and I prefer to turn off the cameras motion control option. Also the optical 10x lens is not as good as others. Still this camera is easy to use and the picture quality is quite good.

Lots of features for a low end mini dv camera. Good picture.

Camera too light, focus hunts too much in many shots, no analog input, viewfinder view too small