JVC GR-D200U Mini DV Camcorder Review

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Special Issue 2004

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JVC's GR-D200 is a stylish palm Mini-DV camcorder made for the person who wants point-and-shoot ease for video and still images. Its colorful circular design makes the GR-D200 look a bit like a portable CD player. No doubt, JVC sought to introduce some on-the-shelf eye appeal to differentiate the GR-D200 from the multitude of its competitors.

Like many of them, the GR-D200 sports FireWire, USB and analog video outputs, making it easy to dump video and stills to computers and to copy video to VCRs. A one (1.33) megapixel CCD attempts to get the most out of this little camera's light capturing abilities. We found this cam's scalable flash to be a nice addition.

The GR-D200 has a very solid feel, but it is not the most comfortable camera to operate. People with small hands will have an easier time with it. The rest of us will have to make sure our pinkies don't drift in front of the lens. Also, the controls for zoom and snapshot are a bit too far to the rear of the camera for some. We had better results holding the GR-D200 in both palms than with a hand under the provided strap. None of these are terribly uncommon issues with ultra-small camcorders.

The nice-looking semi-circular color band on the LCD side of the camcorder carries the dual-function control buttons on its crest. In VCR playback mode, they control transport functions and in manual video record mode they select exposure and focus settings. The menu and its navigation controls are under the 2.5-inch LCD along with the memory card slot and the video/still selector switch. We liked the placement of these controls and found them easy to operate. The back of the camera has the small and proprietary analog A/V input/output jack. You won't find the respective cable at the local electronics store, so don't lose the one that comes with the camera.

In a room with several video professionals, we competed to see if we could find the FireWire and USB ports without looking at the manual. Embarrassment ensued as minutes (literally) ticked by. Finally, we found the jacks under a cute and cleverly disguised plastic wedge above the LCD, just below the transport controls, with no labeling to guide the user. It isn't a bad design; in fact it is quite elegant; it's just hard to find the first time. One problem, however, is that the FireWire cable partially obscures the LCD when plugged in.

As with too many camcorders today, the tape is loaded into the GR-D200 from its bottom and you must remove the camcorder from your tripod and tripod shoe in order to change tapes.

As with most small camcorders with small lenses and small CCDs, the video was less than stellar in low-light situations, with some visible noise and lack of definition. With plenty of light, the measured horizontal resolution was very good, but the image was not overly sharp. We were impressed with the ability of the GR-D200's lens to focus on macro images at extremely short range with ample light and contrast. The zoom function of the 10x optics was smooth and motor noise was minimal in the in-camera mike. The menu setting for the zoom did not make it clear when digital zooming kicked in.

There is no external mike jack on the GR-D200, but it is not a camera where we would expect to discover one. There is also no headphone jack.

The 2.5-inch LCD on the GR-D200 is in keeping with a camera in this price range and is difficult to use for manual focusing. We relied on auto focus in brightly lit situations where using the LCD was impossible.

Manual focusing is not very convenient anyhow and is controlled by the same push buttons used to navigate the menus. The manual exposure control is simply an electronic gain control. There are only two manual shutter speeds (1/60 and 1/100, plus some presets) and no way to set the iris.

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