Benchmarks

($1,000)
JVC of America
1700 Valley Road
Wayne, NJ 07470
(800) 252-5722
www.jvc.com

Tech Specs

JVC adds another camcorder to its traditional line of simple VHS-C camcorders designed for beginners and hobbyists with the GR-AXM700. With several additional advanced and production oriented features, such as color bars, insert editing, and digital still camera, this is also a good camcorder for the creative hobbyist producer.

Overall, we were pleased with the GR-AXM700's design as a production camcorder for the home market. It's refreshing to see a VHS-C camcorder with manual controls and insert editing ability. The GR-AXM700 also functions as a digital still camera, capturing up to 44 images in local memory that can be inserted onto tape or downloaded to a PC. The GR-AXM700 even includes the ability to record color bars on tape, a very rare feature in consumer camcorders and extremely helpful for editing.

The camcorder is capable of audio and video insert editing. We quickly and easily performed a nice video insert edit using the RM-V705U remote control unit included with the camcorder. The GR-AXM700 additionally includes JVC's Random Assemble Edit (R.A. Edit) feature, which allows the user the option of building a small edit list (eight shots) in the camcorder. The R.A. Edit feature controls certain JVC decks to perform insert edits automatically. The optional RM-V700U remote control is required for R.A. editing to function.

In the fully-automatic mode, the camcorder performed satisfactorily. The autofocus worked well, even though it sometimes took a couple of seconds to find focus when shifting from a near object to a far object or vice versa. The GR-AXM700 has a great macro focus, which easily focused on anything held in front of the lens. For example, it was able to focus on a 35mm color photographic slide held extremely close to the lens, which is useful for copying slides and print photos to tape for use in a program.

The auto iris exposed correctly and adjusted quickly to widely different light conditions (indoors to outdoors, for example). The manual iris control was especially useful for manipulating depth of field.

For sports programs the camcorder includes a sports mode with a high-speed shutter setting. The manual shutter speed has an even faster setting (1/2,000th of a second) and we were able to use it to capture a nice clear freeze of a car traveling at just over 30mph.

The GR-AXM700 has five white balance modes: auto, daylight, overcast, tungsten, and manual. The auto white balance worked well in most situations.

Exposure modes for the GR-AXM700 are set with a dial that's also located on the LCD panel. There are nine exposure modes, including some unique settings that are more picture effects then exposure settings. The settings include fog, ND (neutral density) and high-speed shutter. The fog mode is rather unusual. It's an electronic fog filter that lightens the entire image to simulate fog. The fog mode works pretty well creating a foggy look and it softens contrast in the process. The ND (neutral density) mode is also unusual and works as an electronic neutral density filter to cut the brightness out of the scene.

The fades and wipes are activated with a picture effects button on the back of the LCD monitor. The two fades are black and mosaic. The two wipes are shutter and slide. The fades and wipes are a bit slow. You can turn the picture effects on and off while shooting, however, which comes in handy if you're in the middle of a shot and you want to fade out of it. Although the GR-AXM700 seems a bit bulky and heavy compared to most of today's compact camcorders, it fits the hand well.

The zoom control button has two speed settings: fast and slow. The menu additionally allows you to choose "fast" or "slow." This means you have two speeds on the zoom button, and two speeds on the menu. You can zoom really fast, normal fast, really slow or normal slow. It's a somewhat confusing configuration and unique to this camcorder, but it worked like it was supposed to once we figured it out.

The Electronic Image Stabilizer (EIS) is easy to turn on and off and worked well to reduce shaky camera syndrome. With the EIS engaged, the camcorder zooms in slightly (to allow room for the EIS to adjust the image) which cuts a small percentage of the image area.

The GR-AXM700 has a flip-out three-inch LCD color monitor. With the monitor open, we found we needed two hands to hold the camcorder steady: one to hold the camcorder itself and one to support the monitor. Unfortunately, the controls for picture effects (fades and wipes), low light shooting and wide screen picture mode are on the back of the LCD monitor, so holding it like this sometimes engaged those functions unintentionally.

Menus on the camcorder are operated with a wheel-style function button also located on the LCD panel. The menus control manual focus, manual exposure and manual white balance. Although the settings for focus are easy to manipulate using the wheel, getting to the settings by going through several menu choices could be awkward without some practice. It is also difficult to hold the camcorder steady and change menus at the same time. With the exception of these items, the buttons are well positioned and easily accessible.

The GR-AXM700 also functions as a digital still camera, storing up to 22 high-resolution or 44 standard-resolution digital pictures in the camcorder memory. The images we captured were crisp and clean. The digital still pictures can be transferred via a digital output port directly to a computer using the cable and software included with the camcorder. This feature is very helpful for creating opening titles for videos. With its manual controls and editing abilities the GR-AXM700 is a versatile camcorder that would be useful for the creative home video producer.

AT851a Micro Cardioid Condenser Boundary Microphone
($222)
Audio-Technica U.S., Inc.
1221 Commerce Drive
Stow, OH 44224
(330) 686-2600

Tech Specs

Event and performance videographers are often called upon to tape in situations where they have little control over the program and little chance to form a plan. Because of this, they need tools that allow them to be versatile. Designed for the professional and prosumer market, the Audio-Technica AT851a boundary microphone qualifies as one of these tools.

A boundary microphone is placed at the edge, or "boundary" of the area to be miked. Normally in this situation, sound energy will reflect and bounce around, creating interference. The boundary microphone does not pick up the reflected sound. Ambient noise is therefore reduced and sensitivity is increased, improving the signal to noise ratio. A boundary mike is useful when a surface mounted microphone is called for. This would typically occur in an interview situation, a conference setting with subjects sitting at a table, an auditorium setting with speakers or performers on a stage or as a hidden microphone on a set.

The AT851a microphone is compact and slick looking. Because of its small size and availability in either black or white colors, the mike hides well on camera. The AT851a comes with a dedicated 25-foot long balanced audio cable that is smaller then standard mike cables and therefore easier to hide. The cable connects to a power module that uses a single, AA-size battery. The AT851a boundary microphone can also be powered by an audio mixer's own phantom power supply, if it has one. The power module of the microphone has two positions, one for flat response and one for low frequency roll-off. Flat response is good for most normal-sounding situations. The low frequency roll-off setting is useful for troublesome situations where low frequency rumbling or booming is a problem, such as near heavy traffic or when you are recording footsteps on an uncarpeted wooden stage.

We tested the AT851a in both performance and lecture scenarios by placing the mike at the front of an 18x12-foot stage and at the front of a lecture table. The AT851a was easy to set up. We plugged the mike's cable in, attached the power module and plugged in a standard XLR balanced mike cable going to our Mackie Micro Series 1202 mixer. The mixer output went to a Panasonic AG-1980 S-VHS deck.