Review: JVC Everio GZ-MG330 HDD/SD Camcorder


As the first company to pioneer the use of hard disc drives in low-cost camcorders, JVC continues to expand its line of Everio G models. Is the multiple-flavoured MG330 an ideal choice for the family movie maker?


Image of JVC Everio GZ-MG330 HDD/SDHC Camcorder Red Edition
When SimplyDV invited me to test one of the models in the new range of Everio camcorders I was a bit sceptical, not least because I prefer camcorders that have proper inputs and outputs and over which I have a reasonable degree of manual control. However, I was encouraged to consider this model in the context of one that might be chosen by family users who have very little experience of camcorders and who want a new one that can be used to record the kids on holiday, granny opening her 90th birthday presents, school sports events and so on.

With that in mind, and the fact that such users will often have limits on what they can spend, I decided to take up the challenge and look at this camcorder with the complete beginner in mind. As I have been reminded, where SimplyDV scores over other equivalent websites is the way that it considers its review products very much with the likely end user in mind, so here goes.

First impressions


It’s easy to work out that JVC has the casual leisure user in mind from the fact that you will see it advertised with a choice of colour options. They are all identical in every other respect, but some will prefer blue to maroon and so on, and that’s fair enough. Look beyond the body spray and you will find an array of features that seem to offer good value for money right from the start.

It has a very simple, easy to use design that puts all the controls within easy reach. It is small, but not as small as the tiny Panasonic’s SDR-S7 but smaller than the Panasonic SDR-H280 HDD/SD card camcorder even though it is aimed at a similar market. It has a nice big 2.7” Widescreen LCD monitor but no viewfinder - that is very common in today’s HDD and flash memory card camcorders, however. When you open its LCD screen you see an array of “VCR” type control buttons along its lower edge and a strange-looking light-show type control up the left side. This is what JVC calls a Laser Touch Operation control over which you glide your finger up and down to increase or decrease values that you wish to set manually.

Inside the LCD screen opening is the main Power On/Off button, a Direct DVD and Direct Backup button along with Auto/Manual control selector and the button used to switch between Play and Record functions for movies and still pictures. The BN-BF8080U Li-ion battery pack is slim and slots comfortably and unobtrusively on the back of the body.

Image of silver and blue versions of JVC's Everio GZ-MG330 Camcorder

On the top, a Snapshot button is there to take pictures, and the small zooming control is used to zoom in and out when recording. At the back of the body is the main Record Start/Stop button. On the front left of the main body is a manual lens cap shutter switch (see image above) which protects the lens when not in use.

On first impressions, therefore, it’s a lovely, well-designed camcorder that’s nice to handle and obviously has been designed with the complete beginner in mind - to the point where it can be used in Automatic mode for most of the time, it would appear.

Features


The GZ-MG330 features Hybrid recording and playback - that means it offers the ability to record video and pictures either to a HDD (hard disc drive) or to a flash memory card - in this case a MicroSD card which slots into the underside of the body. The HDD capacity is 30GB (gigabytes) and will hold between 7 and 37 hours of video depending on the quality setting used. The recorded video sequences are created using a compression system called MPEG-2, the same as that used by regular DVD systems.

The recording times when using the hard disc drive are as follows:


You can record in either widescreen or traditional 4:3 aspect ratios as you wish. Obviously, widescreen is what most people want these days but if you only want 4:3 you will find that you can get a lot more video onto the hard disc drive.

It uses a Konica Minolta Lens which gives a zooming capability of 35x magnification (2.2mm to 77mm) and offers a range of Program AE settings designed to match the recording to a range of different lighting conditions. Digital zooming is also provided at 70x and 800x, but many people find the effects of digital zooms to be bad and, let’s be honest, an 800x digital zoom magnifcation is completely useless and therefore pointless.

Like all camcorders in the JVC Everio G range, this model has drop detection sensors which will (when activated) automatically park the hard disc drive and shut down the system if it senses that the camera is being dropped. It will also work when you’re travelling on a big, big dipper so be careful! Images can be kept relatively wobble-free using Electronic Image Stabisation, and it also has the benefit of a Quick Restart button to speed up restart time when you need to record something in a hurry when the power’s off.

Because you can record to either HDD or MicroSD cards (you need to buy your own cards as none is provided in the box), you are given the option to choose which Rec Media you require when starting up. It will stay on whichever you used last if you don’t make this choice each time.

Other things to mention are that it has quite a good range of manual controls - things like Focus, Brightness, White Balance (the balance of light according to whether you are indoors, outdoors in sunlight or cloudy conditions ,etc) and shutter speed. The latter controls the electronic shutter rate of between 1/2 sec to 1/4000th sec and is useful when you need to find a pause frame of some action and even print it out as a still picture, but remember that the faster the speed the more light you will need coming in through the lens! I particularly like the Photometry function in which you can point at parts of the screen (using arrows to go up, down, left, right) to tell the camera which bit to base its exposure on. That’s very useful - and useful even for people who don’t want to fiddle about with manual control menus.

Once you have made your recordings, you can do a lot with them. Clips are shown in the LCD screen just like digital pictures are depicted by thumbnail images in your digital camera, and you can delete them, make a play-list of a sequence, move clips around in that playlist and save the list for later so that you can then make a DVD disc direct to JVC’s own unit that can be connected to the camcorder with a USB cable. You don’t need a computer to make DVD copies, even.

Connectivity


There are two sockets to connect the MG330 to other units. These are a USB socket which allows connection of the supplied USB cable to a computer or to a standalone JVC ShareStation DVD burner, and a AV output connector. This enables users to view video and pictures on a TV or record to a video recorder with the yellow, white and red video/stereo sound cable provided. TheUSB socket is right at the front of the camera next to the microphone, and the AV output socket is at the rear beside a little Access light that flashes when the hard disc drive is in use. There are no other connectors like Microphone input of Headphone output on this model.

Performance


Let’s say first of all that the MG330 is lovely little camera to handle and use. As has been mentioned at the beginning of this review, it is designed for the home leisure user in mind and must therefore be judged on that basis. The home user will find that the camera can be carried easily and inconspicuously in a small bag or pocket and used as desired. IT is well shaped to fit the hands of most users, and when used in fully Automatic mode it produces pictures and sounds that most users will be very happy with. Whether recording simply to play back to a TV set or to copy over to a DVD or HDD recorder using the supplied AV cabling, you’ll find that it does a good job in all but the most unsuited lighting conditions.

Many users like to record movie clips for uploading to content sharing sites like YouTube, Viddler, MyDeo and so on, and in this respect it’s perfect (much like its companion product, the JVC Everio GZ-MS100 is, in fact) because the video quality is going to compressed by those website systems anyway.

However, if you want a camcorder that is easy to use but which gives you pictures and sounds that are also good when recording indoors, in the evening, and where the light level is pretty low, you may well find that the GZ330 isn’t going to give you pictures that are of a sufficient resolution to suit your needs, so you need to be looking at spending a bit more money on something like JVC’s Everio GZ-HD40 high definition camcorder instead.

However, for most casual home users, the performance of the GZ-MG330 will be found to be most suitable.

Conclusion


As you know, I have been asked to look at this in the light of the end-user - or at least that group of users which we think is the target for this camcorder, and in the light of that I think the JVC Everio GZ-MG330 is a great little camcorder. It isn’t brilliant in low light (the pictures are a little bit grainy and it loses its colour when recording in darker rooms at night) but if you’re looking for a nice, economical and easy-to-use camcorder that you can record movie clips while on holiday or at a party, or whatever, then it’s just great. You should be able to pick them up for very favourable prices, too, so get in there now and take advantage of the offers. Recommended.

Reviewed by: Anton Grech, July 2008. Editing by Colin Barrett.