For Christmas I got my wife the new JVC Everio G series. After making my brother wait around at Best Buy for an hour, then wait at Circuit City for an hour, then back to Best Buy for an hour, I decided to get the JVC GZ-MG20. It has a 20gb internal hard drive that holds 4.5 hours of ULTRA Fine video, 2 builtin LED lights for night filming, a 1/6-inch 680,000 pixel CCD, and a SD media slot for storing still images.
For a while I was considering the Sony cams that record to DVD-R, but after reading reviews I found that the recording was slow and could be effected by shooting conditions(i.e. the shaking happens while offroading). The GZ-MG20 also is one of the few entry level video cameras that comes with a light for night shooting and drops the never used view finder. The only main concern that I had about the GZ-MG20 was the reports that the battery only lasted for less than an hour.
After using the GZ-MG20 over the Christmas holidays, my concerns with the battery life were put aside. I'm sure once I start using it for filming lots of outdoor events I will need to consider a bigger battery, but while offroading(I use a power inverter) and filming around the house, the battery held up very well.
We did a 128mb SD card to speed up the still image storing. We will also be adding a tripod(maybe a monopod) to help steady shooting, and the extended battery, in the next couple of weeks.
Overall, we have been extremely impressed by the GZ-MG20. Transfering video to the comptuer couldn't be easier. Just plug it in, open the new removable media drive in My Computer and transfer the .MOV files to your computer. Then rename the extension to .MPG which doesn't even require an extra program, and now any computer running Windows can easily play the movie. The only disappointing part of the purchase is the horrible movie editing software. I am currently in the process of replacing with another brand.
Check out my pictures for video shot with the camera.
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