I bought this camcorder on September 28, 2003 when it was still fairly new on the market and more expensive than it is now. By July 2004 both the LCD screen and the viewfinder just went black. No image but I was still able to record audio. I reported it to JVC. They told me I had to send it in for repair, which I did. It seems that this was a common problem. They didn't ask too many questions. The warranty had already expired so I had to pay a couple hundred dollars. Six months later, the same problem again. I called JVC again and told them the problem. The technician who attended to me suggested that I turn it off and disconnect all power for about an hour and then try again because "that usually works." Now what kind of advice is that? I need this camera to shoot footage of events. What am I supposed to do each time this happens? Turn it off for an hour and ask the event organisers to postpone their events for an hour? Anyway, even that super solution didn't work, so I called again and they said I had to send it in for repair again. So I asked, would I have to be sending this camera in to you every six months? "No," she responded but "thank you for calling JVC."
The words I would like to use to describe this camera and JVC cannot be expressed here but do not buy this camera!!! For the short period of time that it did work, it was great, but I will never buy this or any other JVC product ever again.
I thought about fixing it and then selling it used but then my conscience wouldn't let me pass this problem on to someone else. So I decided to write this review.
This is the first camcorder I have ever used that looks good on an HDTV. No... Let me correct that. It looks great!!!
Have you ever wondered why a normal camcorder looks so bad on an HDTV? It's because an HDTV is very high resolution. When you connect a traditional camcorder (even a Mini DV), the TV sees a much smaller, comparatively low resolution picture and must scale it (digitally enlarge it) to fit the screen. It doesn't matter if you have a $400 low end cam or a $4000 high end cam... Scaling the picture on virtually any HDTV will ruin your camcorder picture.
JVC solved this on the GR-HD1 with the world's first consumer HD camcorder. Basically, it's the first consumer camcorder ever that makes a picture which correctly fits a widescreen HDTV. It records a picture with 720 x 1280 dots, compared with 480 x 720 dots for a normal camcorder.
The result? The detail & resolution is simply phennominal! The colors look great! The video is much more appealing to watch in widescreen because it more closely matches your natural field of vision.
The only thing you need to be careful of is the frame rate. This shoots 720/30P. What that means is it takes video at 30 frames per second. As a result, if the camera uses too fast of a shutter speed you may see a "jitter" in things that move on-screen. The fix is really easy: Simply take the camcorder out of the "auto" mode and lock in a 1/30th of a second shutter speed. This eliminates the vast majority of the jitter. What you are left with is a superb high resolution video with a subtle "film-like" quality.
You don't have to be Stephen Speilberg to appreciate this. This is the ideal camcorder for any type of family video. Think about the great stuff happening today that you'll want to be able to watch 10-20 years from now, and still be happy with the quality.
If you own an HDTV, no other camcorder else even comes close!