JVC GR-DV3000 review

JVC's GR-DV2000 didn't live up to expectations in our DV camcorders group test (see Labs, issue 87). It looked great and had plenty of features, but in the key area of image quality it couldn't deliver the goods. The good news is that its successor, the DV3000, has its main improvements in this department, including a 1/3.6in CCD with a claimed 540 lines of resolution. And with a recent price drop to a tantalising £765, JVC could have a winner.

The DV3000 is also a digital camera, with a maximum image resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 interpolated, but the native CCD capture size is 1,280 x 960, or 1.33 megapixels. Six full-resolution images can be stored on the supplied 8Mb SD card in fine mode, and you can also record video at up to 240 x 176 pixels for use in an email. There are many more useful features for shooting video, including numerous AE modes such as 1/50th second shutter speed for shooting PAL TV screens, and 1/120th for eliminating fluorescent tube flicker. There are also sports, snow, spotlight, twilight, both sepia and monochrome, classic film, strobe, and mirror modes. For night work, the DV3000 offers digital colour nightscope, which uses an extremely low shutter speed to boost receptivity. However, the image can become jerky under poor lighting, and the electronic stabiliser can't be used in this mode.

A manual focus ring is supplied for easy focusing, and there's digital zoom up to 300x, although this severely reduces resolution; you're better off using the 10x optical zoom instead. The 3.5in, 200,000-pixel LCD of the DV2000 remains, but the automatic lens cap has been replaced by a manual one.

There are plenty of connection options available. On the camera body itself you'll find a headphone socket, a combined AV mini-jack for stereo audio plus a composite video input and output, and a JVC printer port. Behind the swing-out LCD panel, there's a bidirectional IEEE-1394 connector. Replacing the battery with an auxiliary extension called the Jack Box adds USB, S-Video input and output, and an edit jack. Apart from pulling images off the SD card, the USB port can be used to turn the DV3000 into a Webcam. However, there's no mini-jack for an external mic, so you're limited to JVC's own audio add-ons.

The most important feature of the DV3000 is its improved image quality. Under red lighting, detail was much better resolved than with the DV2000, showing none of the excessive blooming around the edges of objects, although there was still clearly a red bias. Rich yellows also had a tendency to become reddish - an effect that was only marginally improved by manual white balancing. Overall detail under low-level tungsten lighting, however, was impressive, and this was carried forward into testing outdoors under reasonably sunny conditions. Here, the DV3000 excelled, producing sharp, accurately coloured video even when using automatic settings.

Unfortunately, the DV3000 has kept one less-than-welcome feature of its predecessor: the bottom-loading tape mechanism. Tripod users will have to unscrew the JVC every time they need to change a tape. Otherwise, the GR-DV3000 is a camcorder with plenty to commend. If you're after a high-quality, light and stylish camcorder with still image capabilities, you should audition it.

Author: James Morris