JVC GZ-MG70 Camcorder

The GZ-MG70 sells for around $800, an expensive first step for most consumers. This is JVC's top of the line in the G-Series, which use non-removable hard drives for storage. JVC believes their Everio G-Series represents the future of camcorders. They have picked up on three notable features – portability, simplicity, and capacity – that seem to mark the direction in which the industry is bound to shift. And we can’t argue that point. Camcorders are getting smaller each year, and the writing is on the wall for tape media. But before we can reach that land of milk and honey, where solid state cams weighing less than a feather can produce video of unparalleled quality, the path must be built to get there.

The MG70 is light, small, and simple to operate, but those benefits have often proven to come at a cost, most often in the form of awkward handling and curtailed manual controls. But JVC frequently excels in giving users manual control options above and beyond what Sony or Canon typically provide. So did it find a balance? And what about the solid-state file types; can they be easily edited? And what, if anything, is better about this camcorder than the abysmal MG30? For answers to all this, and more, read on.

Video Performance(5.75)
The GZ-MG70 captures video using a 1/3.6” CCD with 1,228,800 effective pixels. These are fairly impressive specs. The Optura 50 and 60 feature only slightly larger 1/3.4” chips, and both produced great video. But it takes more than chip size to deliver quality video, as the MG70 has the misfortune of proving.
At 3000 lux, the picture had unsatisfactory color representation and significant sharpness problems. As with the GZ-MG30, the camcorder had most of its color trouble with the yellow-green portion of the spectrum, which lacked any definition. The grayscale was slightly improved, with a much blacker black and whiter white. Also, the MG30's noise issues seem not to have carried over to the MG70 very much. There is still some noticeable noise in the violet and yellow areas. Sharpness seems to be the worst area of performance. Even with the larger chip (vs. the MG30’s 1/6” chip), the blurring is apparent.

The Panasonic SDR-S100 (Specs, $1199), the SD card-recording cam with a 1/6” CCD and 640K effective pixels, produced an exceptionally sharp image, though coming at the cost of some fine grain. The color definition was much better, with bolder (though not brighter) colors. The only area where the MG70 might have trumped the S100 is in brighter whites. The Canon Optura 60, a comparably priced MiniDV with a 1/3.4” CCD, showed a sharper picture (though not nearly as good as the S100) but had marginally better color representation than the MG70. The biggest area of difference was the red-orange area of the spectrum, which was more clearly defined by the Optura 60. Finally, we looked at the king of the Everio line, the GZ-MC500 (Review, Specs, $669.99), with three 1/4.5” CCDs. As if proving its familial bonds, the MC500’s color chart looked nearly identical to the MG70’s, but with a uniform boost in sharpness and color saturation. The MC500, in the same way as the MG70, did poorly in the yellow-greens and better in the blues. The MC500 did manage to sidestep the noise problems.

Video Resolution (13.9)
Video footage was taken of a standard ISO resolution chart with the JVC GZ-MG70 in both 4:3 and wide mode. Stills from that video were exported to Imatest Imaging Software in order to determine the camcorder’s true video resolution. In 4:3 mode, the camcorder gave us approximately 477.9 lines of horizontal resolution and 292.2 lines of vertical resolution at its best, yielding a true resolution of 139642.38(0.14 MP). In Wide Mode (16:9 aspect ratio) the GZ-MG70 gave us 448.4 lines of horizontal resolution and 252.1 lines of vertical resolution at its best, producing a true video resolution of 113041.64 (0.11 MP).
Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (5.0)
As with the GZ-MG30, and presumably all the G-Series Everios, finding the button to switch between automatic and manual control is one of the largest challenges a new user will face. Only upon close inspection of the left panel will you start to wonder about that graphic of the letters “A” and “M” connected by a diagonal line, located in the region of the right side of the navigation pad. A similar looking “A” on the LCD screen seems to indicate that you are in automatic mode. But toggling to Manual mode, then back, is the surest way to tell. If you touch the button, nothing happens. The “A” is still there. “How to get to Manual mode?” you wonder, as you press the button again and again. Finally, as you give it a long and frustrated poke, you happen to hold it down. Success! Your quest is complete. And if this little narrative sounds overly harsh, please consider that ease of use is supposedly one the MG70’s selling points. Finding a button shouldn’t be this hard.

Automatic controls are available for focus, exposure, white balance, shutter speed, and gain. The focus is surprisingly good, especially in close up. The problem is its relationship to stabilization. If the camcorder is on a steady surface or tripod, the focus does not falter much. But with the type of hand-shake you get in a full 10x optical zoom, the subject comes in and out of focus. The digital stabilization system does little to correct this, whereas an optical stabilization might have done a better job.

Conclusion
The GZ-MG70 is, undoubtedly, a step into the future. Solid state camcorders will eventually phase out MiniDV tapes. We are not reluctant to let them go. Tapes require shelf space. They collect dust. They can be lost or damaged, and transferring them to a computer takes time. What we can assure you of, most sincerely and assuredly, is that their obsolescence is not here yet, and the MG70 will not speed it along the path to retirement.

The best possible video quality, we believe, is still the top priority for a camcorder. Portability and ease of use have their place, and if the world of video was judged by point-and-shoot usability alone, the MG70 would do well. Almost anyone could take this camcorder out the box and be recording within a minute. But this is not enough. Consumers should be given the options for control, even if they choose not to act upon them. JVC has, historically, been good about including manual control options. The MG70’s exposure, shutter speed, white balance, and focus (well, maybe not the focus) are all useful, but none of them are readily accessible. In the effort to minimize the size of the camcorder’s body, the buttons were disproportionately shrunken. This leads to some serious handling issues that most users are going to notice.

Adding to, working with, and editing from the video has also been severely curtailed. There is no audio input, so you’re stuck with the built-in microphone, something manufacturers rarely, if ever, put much thought into. There is also no headphone output, preventing you from monitoring the audio track as it is being recorded.

The solid state media creates a host of editing issues. Currently, most editing programs cannot import the file types that the MG70 uses. Manually transferring them and changing the file extension to .MPG allows you to import the video, but the audio track seems to disappear. In order to edit the entire package, you are forced to use JVC’s rudimentary editing software bundle. It has most the basic options (fades, etc.), but you won’t have the advanced capabilities of something like Premiere or Final Cut. The whole editing suite JVC provides is geared towards rushing your footage off the cam’s hard disk and onto a DVD.

The MG70 is a good sight better than the MG30, that’s for sure. Video performance in bright light is only marginally better, but the low light is remarkable. See the pictures above and you’ll know why we called it one of the best performers we’ve seen it a while. If low light and ease of use are enough for you, maybe you’ll find the MG70 sufficient. But the deficiencies, in our opinion, are overwhelming. JVC has begun the road to consumer solid state camcorders, but we all have much ground ahead of us.

The auto white balance is the weakest of the controls. The GZ-MG70 can’t seem to adjust well to shady outdoor colors or indoor color temperatures leaning towards yellow. There are three preset modes: Halogen, Cloud, and Fine. None of these could do as good a job as the cam's manual white balance. Of course, not everyone is comfortable making manual adjustments like this, which is why manufacturers like Canon offer up to six presets rather than three.

The auto exposure did an excellent job making quick adjustments between changes from strong to moderate lighting. Less than moderate lighting, though, was a cut-off point in terms of quality. The exposure could not raise itself to make a low-lit environment appear brighter. It had trouble making a sharp image out of black objects in even medium light. Unfortunately, the manual exposure adjustments did not help much, but that will be elaborated upon in the Manual Exposure section below.

Any of the preset controls, like the white balance presets, must be engaged in Manual mode. Once there, pressing down on the navigation pad will bring up the manual control menu. Notable automatic controls, in addition to white balance, include NightAlive, JVC’s slow shutter night mode, and four Program AE modes: Twilight, Spotlight, Snow, and Sports. See the manual for recommendations, but the names should give you some ideas of what they do and which situations call for their use. Pushing up on the navigation pad also toggles between two additional exposure features. Backlight Compensation boosts the exposure to keep a strongly back-lit subject, such as a person in front of a window, from appearing too dark. The second feature, Spot Exposure Control, significantly narrows the range of the frame – down to a small circle – that the camcorder uses to adjust the exposure. The target can be moved into the three spots across the middle horizontal axis of the frame, then locked in by pressing the set button.