The JVC GR-D20 is JVC's cheapest offering in their range of miniDV cameras. Consequently, it comes with very few frills at a fairly low price (I paid 275 pounds at greatsaves in August).
Consumer camcorders of the miniDV format have a number of typical advantages and disadvantages. They ... Read review
Advantages: cheap miniDV camcorder, excellent outdoor quality, quite small Disadvantages: a bit of motor noise, wind cut is not effective
The JVC GR-D20 is JVC's cheapest offering in their range of miniDV cameras. Consequently, it comes with very few frills at a fairly low price (I paid 275 pounds at greatsaves in August).
Consumer camcorders of the miniDV format have a number of typical advantages and disadvantages. They produce excellent video in good lighting conditions and they are quite small. However, they tend to underperform in poor lighting conditions and, due ... ...noise.
The JVC GR-D20 is not different. Image quality suffers quite a bit when it gets dark. Night scenes in cities can produce rather grainy images with poor colour reproduction. However, because the lens (the same one the is used in the more upmarket variations of the JVC GR-Dxx) of this camcorder has a widest aperture of f1.6, the quality is not too bad. When shooting at night, you may occasionally have to switch to manual focus, ... more
The JVC GR-D20 is JVC's cheapest offering in their range of miniDV cameras. Consequently, it comes with very few frills at a fairly low price (I paid 275 pounds at greatsaves in August).
Consumer camcorders of the miniDV format have a number of typical advantages and disadvantages. They produce excellent video in good lighting conditions and they are quite small. However, they tend to underperform in poor lighting conditions and, due to their small size, their microphones tend to pick up motor noise.
The JVC GR-D20 is not different. Image quality suffers quite a bit when it gets dark. Night scenes in cities can produce rather grainy images with poor colour reproduction. However, because the lens (the same one the is used in the more upmarket variations of the JVC GR-Dxx) of this camcorder has a widest aperture of f1.6, the quality is not too bad. When shooting at night, you may occasionally have to switch to manual focus, though, because the camcorder can get confused when it gets dark.
The camcorder also picks up some motor noise when the scenes are particularly quiet, but I did not find that too disturbing. If the quality of the sound reproduction is an important issue, it is possible to connect an external microphone.
Under daylight conditions, the camera produces excellent quality images. If you've never used a miniDV camera before, you'll be amazed with the quality of your video.
Althought the JVC GR-D20 is not the smallest or lightest camera around, it is a featherweight and it takes up very little space in your bag. And at its price, you won't find a camcorder that fits in your pocket.
Compared to its more expensive sibblings, the D20 has a very limited feature set: no video inputs, only firewire and analog outputs (no USB), and a limited set of special effects and faders. But, for home video recording, you probably won't need most of the features that have been left out of the D20. Nowadays, there are some excellent video editing tools for Windows and Macintosh PCs that can give you most of the faders and special effects that you could want as a home user. And if your computer has a firewire card, hooking up the JVC GR-D20 (or any other modern digital camcorder) is extremely easy.
I have been extremely satisfied with this camera and I would buy it again. It has some minor disadvantages, but cameras with these come at a premium price. I'd recommend this camcorder for any home user with a PC or macintosh.
...in my experience have found JVC cameras to be most reliable. Although they don't have quite as many features as some other makes, such as special effects and a light, I have found that there is less to go wong when you want a camera for normal everyday use. I have found that although the extra features on the other camcorders sound good at the time for everyday use you only end up using a couple. The picture and sound quality is excellent and I find ... ...this camcorder very easy to use which is very important. Although a light would have been useful a lot of the time it is unecessary as it picks up really well even in the most subdued lighting. The camera is very small which makes it very easy to carry around. ...
FLOSSY1978 21.01.2004 (13.05.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of JVC GR D20
Ease of use
Recording quality
Picture quality
Sound quality
Value for money
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The Main reason for choosing the JVCGR-D50 and not it's little brother the D20 is the DV in feature. If you want to be able to convert your VHS tapes into digital and not have to risk sending off your tapes to have this done by professionals which will set you back the price difference between the D20 & D50 then this is the camcorder for you. Converting old VHS onto DV tape is a breeze. Then hooking up the D50 to your PC with a firewire card and transferring the footage off to preserve and make digital backups is just as simple. The D70 may add the camera snap shot feature with multi media card, but at only 1024x768 resolution this feature isn't that great, if you want snapshots you can still take stills from the footage you take on the PC. Overall the D50 is the one to go for as it has the features you most want and will get use ...
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JVC is one of the world's leading developers and manufacturers of sophisticated audio, video and related software products. Building upon a wealth of technologies the company is moving decisively to offer appropriate solutions for the multimedia age. PRODUCT FEATURES: 1/6-inch 800,000-pixel CCD; 16x optical zoom; 520 lines of resolution with super high-band processor; Digital Color NightScope; DV output (i.LINK, IEEE1394 compliant); 2.5" amorphous silicon LCD color monitor; Power-linked operation; MiniDV format with PCM stereo sound; Picture stabilizer; 700x super digital zoom with Spline Interpolation; Digital effects and scene transitions; Playback digital zoom; Remote control provided; S-Video and A/V output terminals; LP mode for 120 min. on single cassette.
