JVC GY-HD100 Digital Camera Review

Mark Montgomery
December 2005

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The size of the camcorder makes it feel sturdy--we can't help but wonder if you need a license or some broadcast call letters to carry one of these around. For an ENG-style camcorder, it's rather compact and extremely lightweight. If shooting off the shoulder is your thing, overall, you'll find it is very comfortable. It's ever so slightly front-end heavy, but with an add-on professional battery system hanging off the back, it should balance perfectly. A nice feature, here, is the sliding shoulder rest that allows for adjusting the horizontal position of the pad.

The controls on the JVC GY-HD100 are easy to reach. This is one of the areas where JVC has made this camcorder a real winner. All the manual controls are at your fingertips, marking a truly professional solution. In the case of the Return button, this is especially true, as you can switch that button to do Focus Assist. The Focus Assist feature is JVC's solution to the increased need to focus sharply in HD. The feature will change your viewfinder/LCD to black and white and draw superimposed lines where sharp focus exists. No more guessing whether or not subject is in focus.

The package includes a 16x Fujinon lens (optional 13x lens is also available). The lens really stands out on this camcorder. Having fully manual control of focus, zoom and iris, while matching those with their respective automatic servo functions (except focus, of course) will attract videographers who want fine control of their image. Additionally, independent filmmakers will enjoy having the ability to use the gears, take off the lens, and put to use third-party adapters. Let's not forget that you'll be able to transfer to film more easily and with higher resolution with true 24p in HDV, too.

The recording format options are 720/24p, 720/25p, 720/30p, 576/50p, 480/60p, 480/24p and 480/60i, which includes not only the HDV format, but standard DV format as well. As far as aspect ratios go, it's 16:9 for both formats, except that DV will allow you to shoot in 4:3 as well. You can also setup your viewfinder and LCD to display safe areas with or without center marks for 16:9, 14:9, 4:3 and 16:9 with 4:3. This makes protecting for either format a much more simple process.

Offering more control to the camcorder is an advanced set of image controls. In the top menu screen the Camera Process item holds Skin Color Adjust and Advanced Process items. The Skin Color Adjust item allows for fine tuning your skin color detection and range, making it possible to smooth out skin detail. The Advanced Process has color matrix, gamma, black compress and level controls to name a few.

Versatility is the name of the game and the GY-HD100 will allow you to make fine adjustments to get a certain look to your footage. When you've decided upon which settings make you happy, you can save those settings to a file on the SD Memory card slot. This means you won't have to transcribe it to paper or carry around a laptop just to save your settings. There are also three User buttons which you can assign camera functions, such as color bars, AE levels, Preset Color Temperature, Black Stretch and Black Compress.

Connecting your mics or mixer with the two XLR inputs is a snap, because the GY-HD100 has the ability to switch from Line, Mic or Mic+48V. Monitoring the audio is just as easy, too, with two headphone jacks and a line out. One of the headphone jacks is equipped with an ear pad (which is mounted where most people's right ear would be when their eye is sitting at the viewfinder), but it can be removed and put to use with any mini jack-equipped monitoring device.

Additional audio features are test tone, mic wind cut, audio reference level (12dB or 20dB) and mic reference levels for both inputs (50dB or 60dB). The shotgun mic that ships with the JVC performs fairly well, with rich, full tones. It's also capable of picking up a subject's voice from 20 feet away in manual mode. In the full auto mode, however, the audio rolls off quite significantly past 10 feet. Overall, we think you'll be pleased with all the performance and audio features.

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