JVC GZ-MC500

I've decided to buy the camcorder according to technical specifications that every product expose. All seem fine. Small, MicroDrive, record also on a SD card, 3 CCD sensor, nice zoom. Ah, that's the point.

If you use the zoom, and I believe that everybody who buys a camcorder would like to use, the zoom to record scenes that isn't properly closed to the camera, the battery duration decrease its productivity switching from 1 hour to something near 20 minutes, according to how many times you use the zoom.

Unfortunately this "characteristic" isn't specified on the technical sheet, but just on page 15 of Italian manual (I don't know on which page is for

translated manual). So if you need to fit the Micro Drive shipped with your cam, you must to spend another 200 euros for two additional batteries.

That's not what I call a worth.

If anybody told me that when I asked, I wouldn't get that camera even if someone was trying to give me it for free.

It's impossible to use. I just used that one time during a trip with my family and I've spent 1 and a half hours to recharge battery just for use it another 20 minutes. And all after the night before the battery was completely charged up.

The most incredible thing about this trouble is that Italian technician, before you buy this product, is that they haven't informed you about this characteristic, and after they say that simply not use the zoom, and will get a full hour of recording. That's a shame. If I cannot use the zoom I guess that a Polaroid is more convenient.

So don't buy the product if you don't want to spend more money on buing a sufficient number of batteries to assure you get at least one hour of recording.

The JVC GZ-MC500 digital camcorder is small. It's sexy, and it does what it's supposed to. I love it!

I knew this gizmo was small, but once delivered and in my hand I was amazed. It's tiny. The other selling point, obviously, is the micro drive. It's great not having to bother with tapes anymore. Take some footage, and within minutes it's transferred onto your PC to make a DVD or send to your mates. Video quality is fantastic, and as my last digital stills camera was only 2.1 mega-pixels, I'm well impressed with the photo quality too.

I expected high quality from a 3CCD, and this is JVC's top-of-the-line Evario. Instead, the vids/pics look grainy with dark shadows and noise.

I almost returned this until I re-sized the images to 320x240. It was then that the images (encoded as .mov files) looked fantastic.

I am using this for multimedia, so that works for me. Were I expecting to create high-quality DVDs from this -- no way. I'd save my money for a Sony HD.

After 4 days of owning this, it froze. It didn't restore until I reset it to factory settings - deleting all videos.

The camera does not have a self-timer, so I cannot take pics of myself. That means holding on to my old digital camera -- but oh well.

This camcorder is what I want overall. The ones with better quelity don't compare in size and anonymity.

JVC GZ-MC500 - I wanted to upgrade my Sony pc6 and shortlisted this and the Sony HC90. Although much more expensive, I was drawn to the small dimensions and sexy looks. The movie image quality is generally superb but the camera does not perform particlarly well in low light. Still images do look good at first but are not true 5 megapixel images, they are imterpolated and may produce a 5mp image size, but a £150 5mp digital camera will walk all over them. The biggest problem is the mpeg format, unfortunatly JVC have chosen to use the MOD format which is not supported by any of the common pc editing sofware, so you need to recode the files before you can edit using thes packages. The enclosed software does allow editing but I did not use this as I wanted to keep my return options open. The other thing you should know is that additional 4gb microdrives, which give 1 hour of video cost around £180, so you see this little baby cost a lot to run. 4GB CF cards are also available but you need to use the high speed type, which costs the same as a microdrive. Nice gadget, but I returned mine and got a refund (I will wait a little longer before I invest in converging technologies).

I received my JVC GZ-MC500 camcorder today from BestCameras.co.uk and spent the whole day trying various options.

Size of the Camera, is it's biggests plus point and ease of operation. Functional buttons are very well placed. Flash is excellent and I'm very much pleased with it.

There is no degradation of video or images, as files are just copied like from a hard drive. I think, this is one of the biggest advantage of the Microdrive camcorder. With our PVGS70, We face lots of problems while copying the images or video to PC(degradation of quality).

Out door picture quality is better than any other 3ccd camcorder out there in the market (prosumer).

One of the beauties of this camcorder is, while playing back, voice speed can also be altered.

The Video and Image colors are rich and bright. No Fussy drivers as it uses USB2.0.

I feel like, a mini computer as it allows me to Zoom while playing back etc..

I have taken some photos with 10x optical zoom and they are far better than NVGS250 Optical Zoom, which I used for a short period

Some of the -ve Points are, LCD Movement. Every one expects to take his own movie or photo and with this. It's just not possible (LCD Rotates only 45 degrees).

Very bad low light performance. I have tried to capture some photos in total darkness with no use.

Windcut also needs to be improved.

JVC Needs to provide a LCD protecting cover as it is prone to scratches.

I have uploaded some photos for others to my PC.

I will be adding more stuff, after long week end along with Video/Photos.

OverAll Opinion: Very Good Camcorder but needs some improvements (Like Remote, LCD Movement, LCD Protector)