The GC-XA1 from JVC eliminates accessories and seeks to be operable right away, no other attachments to buy. This may not sound extraordinary, but consider the advancements that other sportcams have made recently, and accessories quickly come to mind. The GC-XA1 ADIXXION comes with many of the features that have only been made available via accessory, until now. Take the LCD screen, Wi-Fi connection and make it all water, shock and dust proof and you've cleaned off at least one or two attachments or housings.
All this aside, what kind of video capability does the GC-XA1 have? It's likely that 1920×1080 at 30p and 1280×720 at 60p will suffice. As for included mounting options, there is a both a flexible and goggle mount. The shape of this action cam is encased by scratch resistant rubber and looks like an item you'd pick up in a video game. It is black, a rectangular prism with small triangles removed from each edge. Along the top are the power and record buttons, then on the left and right sides are the 1.5-inch LCD monitor and standard 1/4-inch mount – in case you wanted to do something "standard" with this camera!
JVC put even more thought into this camera by paying attention to rolling shutter and reducing blurred images that can easily occur with high motion subjects. Ultimately you'll have a wide angle view of the action and relative ease to view your video with an HDMI mini output. The fact that this five-megapixel camera has image stabilization, manual white balance, an SD card slot and can take stills should be noted and accounted for. At the end of the day, it's not brand new technology , but it is housed in a new and different way, so isn't that like many great innovations in life? The bottom line is, the JVC GC-XA1 ($350, available late this summer) is an instant competitor in the world of action sports videography.
