Product Reviews

The GZ-MG505 is the flagship model in a range of JVC camcorders that generate compressed Mpeg-2 video streams in addition to Jpeg digital still images, and write them to a 1.8in 30GB non-removable hard disk drive (although an optional SD card can also be used). Its three 1/4.5in, 1.33-megapixel CCDs take advantage of pixel-shift technology that involves shifting the green pixels diagonally by half a pixel in order to quadruple the resolution and which JVC says brings the MG505 into the 5-megapixel class for digital stills. The CCDs are also designed to produce true 16:9 widescreen movie images of up to 1173 x 660 pixels, plus stills images in resolutions up to 2560 x 1920 pixels in both Fine and Standard modes. At its highest quality setting, the 30GB HDD can store slightly in excess of 7 hours of DVD quality video with Dolby Digital audio or around 10,000 Jpeg images at the highest resolution setting.

In contrast to the other models in the series with their brushed aluminium finish, the GZ-MG505 has an impressive black body styling and is slightly bulkier and heavier. It has an accessory shoe and a microphone input terminal at the lower front of the body immediately to the left of the built-in stereo mic. There's an AV-output socket in addition to a USB 2 socket under a rear flap, with an S-Video output socket being provided inside the 112,000 pixel, 2.7in colour LCD screen recess along with the Movie/Stills mode switch, Menu button and a couple of other functional switches. Over the f1.8 10x Optical Zoom Lens is a fixed lens hood with a 16:9 widescreen matte surround and what appears to be a knurled focus ring, though in practice merely forms the body styling. An LED movie/flashlight is incorporated just to the left of the lens.

Given the reliance upon the LCD screen for monitoring, the use of the GZ-MG505 should be considered

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a two-handed job when recording. A tiny joystick on the outer LCD frame provides for all menu selections, including one-push manual control of focus, exposure and white balance settings in addition to selection of Program AE, Aperture/Shutter priority settings and so on. It's a simple job to switch between traditional 4:3 and true widescreen 16:9 recording modes in addition to manually selecting the desired compression (movie quality) setting from the 4 available - ranging from 37 hours recording to 7 hours at the highest quality setting. With the right thumb in place over the record button at the rear, and the left hand supporting the LCD screen and joystick control, it's a very pleasing camera to work with, and one whose balance is just right for the intended market.

All models in the Everio G range come with a wireless remote unit, which is very handy when selecting or playlisting clips for AV output to a TV set or standalone recorder - simply select the thumbnail representing the clip (or range of clips) and select Play. It's all much easier than spooling tapes in a traditional camcorder.

Without JVC's bundling of a handy little Mac OS X app called Pixela Capty MPEG2 Edit, it wouldn't be at all possible to use the Everio G cameras with an OS X Mac. Apple's popular editing apps appear to be in the dark ages where the new generation of tapeless cams are concerned, so Capty is required to pull in the clips and convert them to QuickTime or a DV stream, so that programs like iMovie can use them. After such processing, results in widescreen using iMovie HD and iDVD are of average quality, and nowhere near as good as their PC equivalents. The whole issue of importing and manipulating the .MOD files produced by HDD, DVD and SD cams is an issue that Apple really needs to address quickly.

The pictures produced by the 3CCD MG505 are as to be expected for current HDD technology, and compare favourably with many single-CCD DV camcorders. At the highest quality setting the Mpeg-2 compression produces excellent results with static or near-static close objects, but definition drops markedly with more distant objects. That said, colour, resolution, contrast ratio and overall digital stills quality is very good. Given the addition of an external mic input, accessory shoe and a decent 10x optical zoom, the GZ-MG505 is a great camera if you wish to bypass tape in favour of a format that's improving rapidly.