JVC Everio GZHD7 Camcorder

Funny thing about Amazon reviews: anyone can create one and there is minimal fact checking. They range from single review shills who post ad copy verbatim to dingbats who rate a product one star because the delivery took an extra day. With this camcorder, there appears to be three overall groups: those who don't even own it but feel they have to inform others about competing products, those who can't get it to work well in automatic mode or with their computers, and those who love it. For those who have only read reviews on other sites and copy that info here, yeah, I can and do read other websites, too. It's not helpful to include that information here, especially if the reviewer has not even used the HD7. For the second group, I'd agree that the GZ-HD7 does not perform very well as a "point and shoot" camcorder. To get the most out of it, it should be operated in manual mode. It's not difficult but does take a little practice and experimenting. I'd admit the image stability sy... Read more

Despite many hours or work and attempts to get assistance from JVC I have not been able to get this Camcorder to copy files to my well-resourced, high-speed vista computer. The JVC customer support system doesn't help either. Right now they're directing customers to send emails and I just sent another one this morning. It says the average turnaround time is five days. This is a very expensive product and it should be supported and shoud work with systems without much effort. Earlier as I worked periodically on this problem, they had a phone number to call and I was able to get through to someone, but that seems to have disappeared.

I purchased this camcorder in May of 2007. I took a two week road trip and found the anti-stabilization to be very lacking. To over come this, I purchased a Velbon fluid head tripod, a Manfrotto 560B Monopod, and the GlideCaM 2000 Pro. Now the images I shoot are very pleasing to the eye. One of the primary reasons I purchased this camcorder was it had external audio inputs at microphone level. I have also purchased a Sennheiser shotgun microphone as well as the Sennheiser wireless camera set. I also purchased a "V" adapter that mounts on the shoe of the camcorder to accommodate the Sennheiser wireless receiver and shotgun microphone. I now have professional clarity audio on my recordings. The Everio software that comes with camcorder is a must use in my experience to convert camera footage from on board hard drive to be able to edit MPEG2 1080i footage with my Sony Vegas 7.0 nonlinear editing software. I have three Dell P4 desktops that are not able to play high def fo... Read more

We have been delighted with the results we have had with this HD camera! If you have the patience and are willing to follow the guidelines in the operations manual you will also be just as happy! We use a vast array of software and video plugs to produce HD duel layer dvd's that look just as good as anything hollywood can put out! And thats also the trick to producing the type of quality that the video cam can produce! Learn how to use your video and sound edit or prduction software! We have great results using Pinnacle Studio 11 to Avid Xpress Pro as well as Avid Liquid 7.0, plus all of the Adobe video software. We have also found very good results with Sony Vegas Pro 8 and DVD architect pro 4.5. All for High Definition video files. We have 4 of these Everio's. All mounted on professional high quality video tripods with fluid heads. We also use high quality stereo wireless mics on our tallents or on a sound boom to produce outstanding sound reproduction of up to 300 feet a... Read more

My first impulse when I saw it and read about the features was to buy it, then a friend showed me the bad reviews and i ended buying a different one (Panasonic HDD)... this last one is great but i am an enthusiast and I'm used to have more control over my Cam (exposhure, sensitivity, backlight, sound recording rate, etc... that JVC everio GZ-HD7U has) so.. i ended bying it (Everio HDD)... Good things -I like the idea and flexibility of this 'new media recording system' HDD (LOVE IT). NOTE: for those concerned about HDD versus tapes, tapes get old and after afew years can't read it or recover (i'm not saying it is bad, i love my Sony D8 that in some manner is still superior to these HDD cams generation) NOTE: need place where to save your shooting, get a Terabyte! -The quality of the image is superb, magnificent, excelent... better than any... o yes, i do video editing on 5 different formats... and this is it! (Good for everio) -Good manipulation and control features, much,... Read more