JVC Launches New Mini DV Camcorders

JVC has introduced several new mini DV camcorders including one with a hard drive. Both feature a 5-megapixel digital still camera.

GZ-MC500

The new GZ-MC500 Digital Media Camera is the newest member of the JVC Everio family – the only currently available camcorders that record onto a hard disk. Like the single-CCD Everio camcorders launched last fall, the GZ-MC500 records 60 minutes of DVD-quality video or thousands of photo-quality stills to a Microdrive® removable hard disk. With this newest Everio, JVC combines these benefits with 3-CCD/5-megapixel performance.

The use of three CCDs combined with advanced pixel shift technology allows the GZ-MC500 to deliver 5 megapixel-class digital stills with a maximum size of 2560 x 1920 pixels, and a broadened dynamic range when recording still or moving images. The result is naturally sharp, vivid color, good contrast and clean mages or videos with good low light performance.

The GZ-MC500 creates sharp and vivid images by dedicating a 1.33 (1.23 effective) megapixel CCD to each color – red, green and blue. JVC’s advanced prism optics and filterless 3-CCD pixel shift technology quadruple the pixel count to record 5 megapixel-class stills. Simply put, the pixel shift technique, used also in JVC professional cameras, captures double the 1,228,800 pixel information in both the horizontal and vertical directions, creating a real full color image pixel count multiplied by four for stills. (Everio uses 691,200 effective pixels for each RGB video color.) The broader dynamic range delivers videos with bright realistic colors and photo-quality digital stills up to 2560 x 1920 pixels for beautiful 8” x 10” or A4 prints. JVC optics using three dimension angle mounting technology assures high precision prism/CCD registration with accuracy on the order of one micron.

GR-X5

The new JVC GR-X5 features individual CCDs for red, green and blue to produce vivid images with true-to-life color, and advanced pixel shift technology to deliver 5 megapixel-class stills. To further enhance performance, the new Mini DV camcorder includes JVC’s proprietary Megabrid imaging engine that separately optimizes image quality for video and digital stills. This technology is packed into a fresh, new design that is both compact and comfortable to hold and operate.

The JVC GR-X5 is the MiniDV-based sibling of the new 3-CCD/5-Megapixel still Everio hard disk camcorder, but tailored to the MiniDV user.

The GR-X5 creates sharp and vivid and images by dedicating a 133 (1.23 effective) megapixel CCD to each color – red, green and blue. JVC’s advanced prism optics and filterless 3-CCD pixel shift technology quadruple the pixel count to record 5 megapixel-class stills. (691,200 effective pixels are used for each RGB video color.) The broad dynamic range delivers videos with realistic colors and photo-quality digital stills up to 2560 x 1920 pixels for beautiful 8” x 10” or A4 prints. JVC optics using three dimension angle mounting technology assures high precision CCD registration with accuracy on the order of one micron.