JVC Gy-hd110u

[Scott Sheriff]

The 110U is a nice little camera. I have had one for quite a while. Makes a nice picture under a reasonable amount of light. You really need to look at what format you are going to deliver the finished product in, and what platform you are going to use to edit your footage.
Why did I pick the 110U?
If your talking 720P/30 vs 1080i/30 HDV. I would rather have 720P, and don’t need or want to shoot interlaced, and think the smaller progressive frame looks better.
If your going to shoot HDV, which is kind of a fragile format, I prefer the JVC flavor that has the shorter 6 GOP frame structure, over the 15 frame GOP of the 1080i cameras. Less fragile.
I wanted to originate my footage on tape. Card based cameras present a challenge for archiving. Most people concerned about archiving resort to a tape back up system, which cost some coin. If you originate on tape, you don’t have that problem, since it acts as its own back-up.
Even expensive tape, is cheaper than inexpensive cards for most cameras. Sure you can reuse the cards, but now your back to the archive problem.
I prefer a CCD sensor, over the CMOS sensor.
I have been using cameras since they had tubes, and prefer the traditional layout and ergonomics of the JVC.
There are people that mope about the “poor low light shooting” of the 110U. First I’ll say that it isn’t horrible, just average. If you know what you are doing, you can squeeze a couple of more stops of exposure latitude out of the camera by properly adjusting the scene files. As they come from the factory, they are set very conservative, mostly to match the response curve of a NTSC CRT monitor. Super easy to fix that, and take full advantage of the CCD. Night shots on city streets, things like that come out fine. If you don’t own, or like to use lights, and find yourself shooting under candlelight a lot you may want to pony-up 5-10 grand more for a camera with a bigger pick-up and faster glass.
In the end this camera does what I need done, for the budget I have. Spending more wouldn’t have gotten me anything I needed, and that money is better spent somewhere else.

Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com

I have a system, it has stuff in it, and stuff hooked to it. I have a camera, it can record stuff. I read the manuals, and know how to use this stuff and lots of other stuff too.
You should be suitably impressed…

[Mark Petereit]

I agree with all of the above. For your infrequent use and $2000 budget, I think the 110 is the perfect camera for you.

[Pat Curto]

Hi Scott, I just got on this site to get one question answered that no one, even JVC will respond to. Here’s the deal…I video legal depositions and need the time/date stamp on the video. I output to a DVD recorder. Can the 110U output the time/date thru the composite or component out? I did have the 100U for a week, the menu had “char out, yes” in it and the time/date had “yes” for the display, I could see it in the viewfinder but no output. I’d like to get a 110U because of the 16X lens but before I make another purchasing mistake (luckily the Ebay seller took the 100U back)I’d like to get confirmation that the 110U will perform this task.
Thanks,
Pat

Pat Curto