Jury's Out

My experience with this product has not been great.

I bought at the £200 price, I was initially very disappointed with the battery charge, when recording in normal mode, I got nothing like the time specifified in the manual for a full charge.

Then, on my 3rd recording, the camcorder developed a fault, with the DVD-RW going round continually when you power on, and there was NOTHINGA i could do to stop it, remove the disk etc, tried everything, including removing batteries.

So I had to send it back. I hope I have not been silly, in asking for a new camcorder rather than a refund, but hope springs eternal.

By the way, my disappointment is with Samsung - amazon were outstanding, not only the good price which everyone notes here, but this is the first return I have made in c 7 years of custom, and I was super-impressed with how easy it is to make a return. First class service

Sony Quality At A Reasonable Price

After researching what camera to buy and looking in several retailers and on various websites (retailers and manufacturers) I decided that this camera would do what I wanted and in fact boasts better features than the newer model(s) that appear to have been marketed to replace it.

I haven't been disappointed: Camera itself is sony quality. Supplied software worked for me but its worth considering getting a firewire port and cable for transferring video if you don't already have them. Whilst the usb streaming works firewire makes transferring video alot easier and quicker.

Also consider getting Sony Vegas software to edit your footage. The supplied software is enough to get you going but is somewhat limiting depending on what you want to do with your footage.

So far I haven't been disappointed with the Camera and would recommend it as worthy of being put in your wishlist at least!

disapointed

I bought one of these cameras for my son's 12th birthday, and am sorry to say that it did not come up to expectations .My son has owned and enjoyed an original digital blue since he was 9, it is an excellent movie camera for children, well made, easy to use with fun software which makes editing and downloading your movie a piece of cake with sound effects.However the new version although it sounds just great with a viewing screen and longer filming times with an SD card, just doesn't seem to be made to the same high standards as the previous one, the quality of the microphone and light sensitivity are not as good, the instructions are inadequate even if you go to the website and the software is identicle to the original as far as we could tell with nothing extra, also the"whole thing feels cheap and nasty" to quote my son, the silver bit at the frount even fell off,I could add more in the same vein.It is a real shame that digital blue have not managed to update their original excellent little camera to a higher standard.

One of the best

i bought one of these camcorders and am very surprised at some of the reviews,i found this camcorder to be excellent in almost all ways.
The picture quality is very very good,to take advantage of the quality you need an hdtv,people have said the image is the same as standard definition but they must be playing it back on standard definition tv.Playing back on hd tv is a whole new ball game as the picture quality is as close to what you see with the naked eye as your going to get at this price range,going to use this on my holiday and with the 40gb hard drive it will be plenty as i normally only do about 3hrs of film,no more tapes for me to carry around,oh and as for converting to hd-dvd it was easy with ulead dvd movie factory 6 pro (which does not come with the camcorder).Face detection works very well as well and the slow motion capture is awesome fun even if you can only do 12 seconds at a time.
Anyway this is an awesome cam for very small amount of money,go get one

good improvement

ive owned 2 everios and bought this one as i like the improvements to handling over the previous models.
5mp photos sounds great but reality is in good light they are v good but become noisy in low light unless you are in flash range.
The battery lasts 10mins longer than old model and the lens cover is handy too although manual.
No complaints on video quality but dont expect a professional camera as this is an excellent everyday camera with good 6x4 photos.
Manual control is excellent and also has a mic shoe and input with a small light too.
see reviews on usa gz555 version on camcorderinfo.net.
Im happy with this product.

Sony Every Time

This camcorder is very well made for the money and performs well in all light conditions.Plus you have a built-in light.I had a Samsung before and the build quality of the Sony is superior.
I purchased mine from Amazon with a Sony starter kit,extra battery,tape and carry case etc so I have never run out of battery power.I would recommend buying another battery.
You have digital in and out so if you have a firewire card you can save your work onto the camera.I have given 5 stars because it has loads of features,has performed faultlessly and is so well made.
On the downside you have be careful to open the tape door completely when loading the tapes otherwise the mechanism does not pop out and also with the DV cable as removing the connection on the camera can be tricky.Digital Video 8 is now an older format and the camcorder can look a little dated due to size but then again you have a very stable weight and people complain about the SD Mpeg 4 camcorders because they are too light.
Overall this is a great camcorder with so many top features and if you don't mind carrying a larger unit with you it will serve you well.

Best miniDV camcorder for under £200

A brilliant little camcorder. Served me well for almost a year now and nothing has gone wrong, with marvelous picture and video quality despite the price (£150 when I got it). It is really small and, although it uses tapes, you would usually transfer your footage to the computer and then rewind the tape to use it again so you don't have to buy more tapes. Each tape holds 60 mins on high quality or 90 mins on low quality. You can also plug your camcorder into the TV or watch the videos which you put onto the computer on a DVD! Apart from what I have already said, there are many more things you can do with the camcorder such as black and white mode, snow or sand mode and portrait mode.
Trust Samsung, don't be fooled by the ridiculously low price!

Great for only watching back and back...

To me, I was extremley excited when I bought this camcorder from Comet, at the price it seemed like a fantastic buy, but then when I tried to play what I had recorded on my DVD player, it roughly played and jolted at times. When I watched it on the camcorder itself, it was fine. The quality and sound that it records at is fantastic.

The biggest dissapointment however, is the fact that it's is almost impossible to edit videos on the computer. As this is an AV camcorder, the computer cannot read it at all. I also can't find any software that will let me convert it.

I would only advise buying this if you did not want to edit what you record otherwise it's a huge dissapointment.

Sony HDR-SR1E

Really excellent and comfortable camcorder for recording and watching but it is not available for editing. Today that camera is with huge failing: this does not have FireWire and its footage with file extension .m2ts is not available for converting in HD format. Perhaps in the nearest future it will be the best one when someone invent a conversion for that extension but now Sony HDR-SR1E is usual camcorder with usual MPEG2.

Great idea, execution left wanting

The concept, styling, weight, size and battery life are fantastic, but there are aspects of this product that leave you flat.

This type of camcorder is the way of the future for all of us who want quick family holiday snaps and especially, videos. Tiny size, incredibly low weight, long battery life allow you to literally put it in your top pocket and when necessary, take it out and start shooting in a few seconds.

The SHQ video would be great if I could view it on anything but the TV. Check that your PC's video card has codecs and is up to the task of rendering HD H264 MPEG4 video in real-time before you set off! My work PC was almost up to the task and I can say the quality looked good, even though the video hiccupped.

The 7.1MP camera produces good pics, but the video, which is its prime function has a few issues. First and foremost is the autofocus. It is incredibly slow to auto-focus. It has a face-tracker function, but the model for this must have been a short-sighted hedgehog, because even in good light it takes way too long to focus. Then there's the auto-focus motor noise which, while low in level, is audible in quiet surroundings. I find it unforgiveable to compromise great electronics with el-cheapo mechanics. On the issue of mechanics, the power and SD slot cover are flimsy, and just waiting to be broken.

The camcorder's performance is not wonderful in low light (e.g an incandescant bulb at night), but I guess I expected this, and so I wasn't disappointed by it's performance; in fact, I was a little surprised it did so well. I haven't tried the still-flash yet, but it looks a little dinky.

Overall, this is a potentially fantastic product, provided Sanyo get their act together on the focusing issue. Would I buy it again? Hmmmm, maybe I'd wait for the next model, but then I'd be missing all those shots of the kids that I would never bother taking with my"grown-up", kilo-plus, house-brick-sized, digi-camcorder.

MAC USER? AVOID! But great camera for PC users

I bought this camera a few days ago and I loved it. It's size, it's price, it's features, it is a great entry level HDD camera. I was in love. I made some great videos on it. But then it came to getting the videos on to my Mac... I could move them over fine, but the mpeg2 format caused me problems. I paid for and downloaded the mpeg2 add on for quicktime and I could now view and edit the movies. But the quality is abysmal, the videos are horribly (re?)compressed and horizontal lines destroy every clip I ever made. Even when I burned a DVD containing the files, I found that it played back even worse and every fault, line, pixellation and frame issue seemed magnified. I tried a variety of solutions but nothing worked. Research has led to the same avenue every time. INCOMPATIBLE WITH MACS. I researched this before buying it but obviously not enough. I never imagined that I would have issues. I plugged the camera into my housemate's PC and watched and edited the files and it all worked beautifully.
The small print on the box says that the supplied software CD is windows only, but that didn't bother me as I already had some nice video editing suites on my Macintosh and didn't plan on using the supplied software. But what they failed to mention on the box is that the files are NOT MAC COMPATIBLE.
A lovely camera with great features, I just wish I could use it. I would give this a 5 star rating if it wasn't for the compatibility issues. It should be made clearer on the packaging.

Excellent for the price

Not as compact as a mini DV camcorder but has a fantastic range of features for the price

Down side to the GZ-HD7

This camcorder does everything well, with the exception of the Optical Image Stabilisation- which is totally ineffective. unless you want to take all your videos using a solid tripod ( try that on Safari where speed of set up is essential ). By reading other forums and you will see this is a known problem with JVC washing their hands of it. I can only advise against buying this camcorder, as handheld shooting except perhaps on a wide angle, is a waste of time, giving very shaky images. A lower resolution camcorder with a good image stabilisation would give better results and be a great deal cheaper. I would expect so much more from a camcorder of this price.