Harvey Normans Hard Drive Camcorder

Jess11

Harvey Normans have this camcorder on special offer this week end.
Does anyone know if it is any good? I can't find many reviews on the net.

JVC GZ-MG130EK - 30 GB hard drive.

Kintarō Hattori

Ehh how much is it?

srdb20

Thats funny i just checked Amazon and found a review, (I dont think you really looked:D).

Link

Also be interested to know what price this is on sale for?

Cheers

Mr Magnolia

Yup, I may be on the look-out for one. Price-check isle 5 please?

I'll phone them later if we haven't got one.

Bang Bang

I have this camera so I'll give you a quick run down on my experience so far.

I looked into quite a few cameras over the past couple of months when thinking of upgrading away from tape/miniDV and afer a lot of reading I opted for the JVC MG130EK.
The 30gb hard disk is very handy alright, especially if you're heading away you can store everything on the disc.
It also has an SD card slot which you can use as extra video memory or you can set the camera up so that when you're filming, if you catch a moment you'd like a snapshot of then just press the snapshop button located on the top of the camera and it will send the pic to the SD card whilst still recording video, handy! Now to be honest in todays digital market the snapshots wouldn't be great.
But the quality of the video recording is excellent. Another thing is each time you press and release the recording button the hard drive seperates each recording into it's own window so you can review/delete only the portions you want. If you're happy with what's on the camera then the software will stitch it all together and you won't even notice.

The camera is very compact and light and very easy to use. You can record in full colour (of course) and also in Sepia, Black & White, Classic old movie with flickering of frames and Strobe.

The battery life is ok'ish. Ideally you'd need a longer life if you were doing a lot of filming where you had no electrical point for charging. A full charge takes 90 minutes on the standard battery which will give you about 90 minutes recording, not a lot really. The standard battery is only 750 mAh which isn't a lot for modern digital camcorders.

Back to the camera, it has a hand shake stabiliser function which is very good and a wind noise adjuster which is also very effective.
It doesn't have a built in light or flash but records very good quality in low light.
You can also fit it to a tripod via the standard sized threaded point.
It also has a "drop" sensor which allows the hard drive to power off if it senses sudden drop motions, this is designed to save all your data should you drop or let the camera fall.

Now one draw back which is a pain if you upload videos to the internet via youtube for example.
The JVC saves in .MOD format so you need to convert all your files to .AVI if you plan on uploading to the internet.
You will need additional software like Adobe Elements for example. There are many free downloads out there but some of them are not great and do not equally compress the file so you may get your film running but the voice is out of synch so stick with a good quality programme.
The software that comes with the camera is Cyberlink Power Director Express
is very good at making movies, adding titles/music etc, very much like Windows Movie Maker but it doesn't allow you convert to .AVI.
You can also burn direct from camera to DVD via a PC or optional JVC burner.

To convert .MOD to .AVI you simply upload your video from the camera to your PC (make a seperate folder here if you like) simply click on the file and rename it from .MOD to .mpg. Export it to Elements or similar and convert to .AVI. Then simply use your usual software, Movie Maker or what ever and upload your .AVI movie to the internet.

I don't know what price Hardly Normal will be charging but most good electrical and camera shops have it in stock for €350 which I believe is a very good price for a Hard Drive camcorder of this quality.

event

was in harvey normans dundalk and could only see JVC GZ-MG135EK

its €399

McCalvin

I've been looking for a HD camcorder myself

Pixmania have the GZ-MG130 for €283

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/533112/art/jvc/everio-gz-mg130-camcorder.html

Jess11

Thanks for that info. folks, especially to Bang Bang.
Went up to Harvey Normans this am. It's the JVC GZ-MG 135 that's on offer for €249. The difference between the 135 and 130 is that the docking station for the 135 has a firewire connect. Only the first 10 were on sale for that price and I was 11th( who wanted the camera) in the queue. The guy who was giving out the tickets for the different items said to go in with my group (allowed in in groups of 10) and do a deal with the sales person. I went in with no.10 and said that I was no.11 and was desperate for the camera. He sold me and no. 12 the cameras at €249 as well. Thrilled with it. Tried to playback through the TV and sound was very low. Have to read manual to see if I'm doing something wrong. Sale on again tomorrow. Store open at 12pm.
1st person in queue today got a Dyson hoover. He queued from 2am. The women in front of me was no. 10 for the Dyson and was queuing from 8.30am! Store opened at 9am . I queued fron just after 8.30am but didn't get in till about 9.40.There were about 100 in queue when I got there.
Good Luck if anyone is queuing tomorrow.

Kintarō Hattori

I hate that crap. You are either selling a model at a given price or you're not. Having a small amount to sell just to drum up interest and get people in your store is an annoying practice.