GR-DVL9800U probably not worth it
Written: Nov 27 '01
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Pros: Small size, takes digital stills, good auction prices avail.
Cons: dull colors, no image stabilization in auto mode, poor indoors, poor flash, serial transfer
The Bottom Line: Would not recommend - poor job indoors on both video and stills - even with the flash.
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| jvolzer's Full Review: JVC GR-DVL9800 Mini DV Camcorder |
I'll start by saying that I bought this camera as a factory refurbished model. I got a fantastic deal at an auction. So perhaps the problems with color and the flash that I describe below are because this camera is somehow defective, although I doubt it.
I was looking to replace my Sony 8mm camcorder AND my Sony Mavica FD71 digital camera (saves to floppy disks at 640X480 max). I decided that if I was going to replace my digital camera, it would have to be with something that took higher-res pictures. Since 640X480 is the max you can do on a DV tape, I had to look at DV camcorders that saved the stills to a memory card of some sort. This camera will do XGA as well as VGA. I don't think, however, that it's really a megapixel CCD, so I don't think I really accomplished this goal anyhow. This camera saves to MMC cards. The newer JVC models save to MMC or SD cards (both are the same size, SD are newer). Also, it stood to reason that if I was going to take photos indoors (most of mine are), I'd have to have a flash. This narrowed my search considerable because very few DV camcorders have a flash. In fact, JVC was one of the few companies, and only a few of their models have them. I've noticed now though, that Sony's latest (TRV30) and Canon's new Optura 100 now have flashes.
My first use with the GR-DVL9800U was taping the kids outside on a playgound. The footage looked great! It was a sunny day and the colors were beautiful. I played around with the digital transitions between scenes and they worked well. You can even bring up the menu and set a transition while taping so that it will take effect when you stop the scene and start the next one. The on-screen menu is easy to use while taping since the menu wheel & button are an easy reach with your first finger.
DIS: From there it was down-hill though! I realized that the digital image stabilization was not working, even though I configured it to be on. I then realized that it only works when the camera is set to manual mode! How dumb! I don't want to full with a bunch of settings, so I prefer to use Automatic mode - I think most people do. For some reason it doesn't work in manual mode!
White Blaance: While the colors during outdoor shooting were great, I found them to be quite poor indoors. The white balance seemed to be quite off if automatic mode was used. Again, I don't want to fool with a bunch of manual setting to get it to look good for each situation, but indoor white balance only worked if I set it manually.
Low light: The picture inside was quite grainy too. This was true even with all the lights in the room turned on. I could improve it considerably by going to manual shutter mode or Gain Up mode manually, but the problem with the faster shutter is that the video becomes very "sureal". It looks a bit like watching an old-fashioned movie... sort of choppy or strobe-like. The instruction manual confirmed that motion would not look very good in this mode (then why use it? How often to you shoot VIDEO of something sitting still not moving? You might as well take snapshots!).
Serial transfers: You can use the DV port to transfer to a computer with a firewire card, but the only method provided by this camera for transfering the stills is serial. I knew this when I bought it and just decided to by a USB MMC card reader (about $30). If you get this camera, just plan to get the reader. The serial tranfer is VERY slow and tedious! Also note that it won't work on a computer running Windows NT or 2000, so my guess is that it won't work on XP either. The transfer software that comes with it won't recognize the connection under these OS's.
Flash: As stated earlier, I really wanted a camera with a flash since I planned to replace my digital camera with this. I found, however, that when the flash does work properly, it very often white washes the subject. It appears that it doesn't properly handle auto-exposure. The instruction manual notes that this can be a problem and says that the camera will attempt to compensate for this over-brightness by darkening the picture. Well, I saw this happen too, on occasion. When it darkens the picture, it makes it so dark that most of the color is lost and it looks like you didn't use a flash at all! So all my stills were either white-washed, or too dark to see. Most have little or no color. Again, this is all for indoor shooting. The outdoor pictures looked great. I certainly didn't want to limit myself to a camera that only works well outdoors!
Overall: After looking at my stills and video from indoors, I decided that I was better off with my old Sony 8MM camcorder and digital still camera, so I sold this camcorder. I've had other JVC equipment in the past that has performed much better. Perhaps my problems were not typical of their other models (I see that new ones don't have a flash, but do have an integrated video light), or maybe they were because I had a refurb. One cool feature that did work well was being able to play back the tape and grab a frame from the tape and save to the memory card (640X480). This camera also has dual shotting mode that lets you take a still to the MMC without stopping live video recording (although it's also at 640X48).
I'm not including the specs and such in this review because it's easy enought to find them elsewhere - just search on the model number on the JVC site and you can get the details.
I'm going to save up for a Sony TRV30 or Canon Optura 100 MC!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 500 (refurb)
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Epinions.com ID:
jvolzer
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Location: Calhoun, GA USA
Reviews written: 74
Trusted by: 4 members
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