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hands on JVC GY-HD100 review/ Vegas HDV 24p bug
At the invite of friend and local JVC dealer Bill Powers (VideoSound Ithaca, NY) http://www.Videosound.com
I spent several hours of intense on hands testing of one of the first JVC GY-HD100 delivered to the Finger Lakes region Of New York State. It was equipped with the stock 16x lens with which it is extremely well balanced.I have been shooting going on to years now with the JVC JY-HD10U. The bulk of my business has been cinema style wedding videography. I have also begun shooting for an independent film and shoot vintage race cars as a hobby with plans for a production or two some day. I have a background in music as well as video and have produced several music videos too. Most of my work gets down converted to 24p wide screen DVD so I was interested in the HD100 primarily for it’s 24p and cine features. Thus I spent most of my time in 24p mode.
At first glance the camera was a little bigger than I thought it would be but still very compact for a shoulder mount. It’s sturdy build balance and weight make it very easy to achieve smooth shots.I believe the LCD monitors are the same ones as found on the HD10U so if you are used to referencing with these you will have no problem carrying over your experience. I have found them to be veray accurate for a small LCD in their color representation. Appearing just a little less saturated than a normal tube TV. The main controls are all laid out in an easy to memorize lay out allowing you to make adjustments on the flying with out looking at them.
One thing I didn’t like is that you have to dive into a menu to change recording formats unlike the easy to find side switch on the HD10U. It took us about 15min. to figure out how to get into the menu but once there the change was fairly simple. You press and hold the status button and them press the shutter wheel. You then use the shutter wheel to scroll through the menu pushing it in to make you selection much like the HD10U. I had hoped the menu would have Ben laid out more like the HD10U for an easy transition from one camera to the next but it wasn’t. We were not able to figure out how to display time code or audio levels on the view finder during our time how ever most everything ells was fairly simple to find for some one who has experence with that kind of stuff.
If you were not even to consider the HDV capabilities of the HD100, as DV camera in of it self it is outstanding.
Though I did not test the DV 480 60i mode, the detail in DV 24p mode is amazing. much to my surprise it doesn’t seem to have the blockiness usually associated with DV. The professional lens compact body and affordable cost of MiniDV tapes makes this camera a serious rival to the $7-10,000 DVC-PRO cameras.Out of the box the camera produces fairly transparent colors. there aren’t any funny green streaking wen pointed at the sun (maybe a hint of green but nothing like the HD10U) only clear beams of sunlight. The built in ND filter are handy and the auto iris works nicely though I found my self wanting to over ride it at times. You can flip the iris to manual and at the touch of a button do a quick fix much like on an auto focus. Although the camera doesn’t have the auto focus the lens roles nicely into focus with a wide range of depth of field from very narrow to wide open. The power zoom is very professional making it easy to pull of slow smooth zooms with out jutted starts or stops. The lens also has a port on the underside for remote control making this camera ideal for crane and double handled tripod use.
The camera attached to my stock 501 Bogen head mounting plate and was easy to balance. Shoulder mounted it took a couple of seconds to make the adjustments before it was comfortabley riding on my shoulder. The ear peace didn’t quite line up with my ear but it was close enough. Holding it from the top handle for low shots was equally easy and comfortable to operate.
While doing my out side test, a young deer graced us with it’s presence giving us a chance to put the camera to work at picking out fine details. Later viewing the HD footage on both my 100″ projection screen and my 19″ computer monitor I was able pick out individual hairs with astonishing detail.
JVC has once again included the same amazing frequency enhancing technology as found in the HD10U that makes for sharper looking images. This time they have given us separate vertical and horizontal control of the amount of enhancing. The picture this camera produce is very clean just as I had hoped. The 3 newly designed CCD’s work perfectly. Zooming in on stills captured in my NLE from HDV footage appeared to have little to no artifacting and made stunning photographs. They are much more detailed than those I have done with my HD10U. Even far a way trees on hill tops retain stunning clarity and detail.
Where this camera really shines is in the Cine mode. Deep into menu is a list of parameters that allow the DP artist to create a custom pallet of personal preference. At first glance turning Cine on appears to turn blacks blacker more of a film look. Black stretch and compress allows you to darken or lighten back tones. Reds Greens and Blue can be individually dialed in and increased or decreased. Color saturation and gamma can be increased and decreased. I cranked up the reds, saturated the color and turned up the gamma for a rich warm color popping look much similar to what I get using a ehancer and warming screw on filter on my HD10U. The look made so popular in many of today’s Holly wood movies.
The SD HDV 480 60p mode worked as expected just as on the HD10U producing real time life like motion with very close to 720 60p detail. Those shooting HDV 720 30p will love the new motion smoothing option found in the menu.I think It comes stock turned off but once turned on it takes care of the jitters usually associated with 30p. I also like using it in the 24P mode as I prefer a smooth film motion look wile retaining the film feel. Speaking of motion the electronic shutter control is very versatile depending on the mode you are shooting it give you optimized setting for that mode to choose from. In 24p mode it starts all the way down at 1/6 and include the all important 1/48 speed.
This camera is great for both those that want to do a simple shoot with all there basic controls at there finger tips as well as those that want to dive into menus seeking out the ultimate creative look.
I highly recommend this camera and wile I have never gotten my hands on an Sony HDV camera for comparison I would say the versatility of formats, (480 60i, 480 24p pull down, European and American versions of 24p, and 30p) uncompressed 720 50/60p out put, the professional detachable lens True 720p detail and shoulder mount comfort make it well worth the money as a DV or HDV camera.I Hope to be able to purches The HD100 somtime in the next year as founds become avilable retaining my HD10U as a B role camera.
I hope to get some pics and footage from my tests posted shortly.
Note: I was able to use my HD10U to capture the footage I shot on the HD100. As I expected 720 30p and 480 60p captured no problem but HDV720 24p as I already new would not decode on the HD10U as a picture. What I didn’t expect but makes sense is the computer was still able to get the data via fire wire and capture it perfectly. Also to my surprise The HD10U played DV 24p perfectly and I was able to capture that as well.
I am not sure if you can print back to the HD10U in that mode as I have not done much experimenting with that yet. I usually print to D-VHS. This finding should be good new for those of you with existing JVC HDV Decks, and JVC HDV cameras as you may not need to go out and by new HDV decks right away to input 24p into your NLE. I wonder if this is true across the platform with Sony HDV. That would certainly put a spin on the whole HDV battle of the formats.
Sony Vegas 5.0 users note: Sony Vegas 5.0d build 194 does not handled 24p mpeg right. You can drop it into a time line just don’t touch it! Render it to uncompressed or some other format of choice. It will do that fine but as soon as you go scrubbing your time line, even clicking on it, splicing fading or anything like that it starts having drop outs, (blank frames) flash backs to other frames, out of order sequences, stutters, and large block digital brake up. The abnormalities are evident in preview and will render into the new file. You can edit in DV or uncompressed AVI 24p and render back to HDV 720 24p for print back to tape with out a problem. I have yet to see a patch to fix this problem. Any one no if it was fix in Vegas 6.0
Matt Norton
Refining Fire Productions
Preserving History In High Definition
Video Production & Photography For All Occasions
Multi Media And More
http://www.RefiningFireProductions.com
ma********@*********************ns.com
(607) 535-7659
Montour Falls, NY -
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