Rated 
JVC GRD-770 MiniDV Camcorder
Small size, picture quality, excellent battery life, good features for the price.
Motor noise in recording, no automatic lense cover, poor low light performance.
Posted Jul 6, 2007 - Bought this DV ccamcorder to replace my aging Sony Hi8 XR camcorder that I paid over a 1000 in 98. Paid $170 for this camera after price match and a coupon and I am overall happy with its performance. Its picture quality is nice and clear when played back on my 32" screen. Battery lasts almost 2 hours which is a nice feature given that most compact camcorders only last about an hour. It also has built-in LED light but its low power and won't light up the entire scene but is still useful for close quarters. Another nice touch is that opening the display or pulling out the viewfinder automatically turns on the camera reverse turns it off. My only problem with this camera is that it does pickup fair amount of motor noise in quiet environments. Thankfully its not too noticeable when there are fair amount of background noise. While not a show stopper, I did exchange it for another and it didn't make any difference so it appears to be in the design. I take it that it will not be easy to design a camcorder this compact and not expect it to pickup some noise. This is my 1st miniDV camcorder so I have no other camcorder to reference it against but given the price I paid for it I can live with it. Camcorder also suffers from poor low light performance. However, this is the the norm rather than an exception in camcorders in the low to even medium price point. Don't take me wrong, the camcorder does take perfectly acceptable if somewhat grainy videos in your average indoor settings but I wish it could do better. One more minor nitpick is it doesn't have automatic lens protector when its powered off but again, that probably has to do with price. You can't have everything at this price point. All in all, this is a great basic camcorder that takes clear videos and will tide me over until I make the jump to HD camcorders down the road.
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Rather Disappointing
