Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
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JVC Everio Full HD Camcorder with 20x Optical Zoom
$219.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: Refurbished

Product List:
- 1 JVC GZHM320BUS Everio Full HD Camcorder w/20x Opt Zoom, 2.7" LCD, 8GB, HDMI, SDHC

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

Aw man, I already spent a lot on the Woot-Off, but I have been looking for one of these, on the cheap.

Dang you Woot.

Does anyone know if this camera plays well with a Mac and iMovie?

How much hours of video can this camera take with a fully charged battery?

http://www.amazon.com/JVC-GZ-HM320-High-Definition-Camcorder/dp/B0032FPY06/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1287723705&sr=8-1

Amazon link? One review lives here.

So, is this thing's output camcorder quality or flip-video quality? Is the video going to be soft and have motion blur?

Quick google search shows they go for around $300 to $400 from any other retailer new or refurbished.

http://www.amazon.com/JVC-GZ-HM320-High-Definition-Camcorder/dp/B0032FPY06/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287723880&sr=1-1-fkmr1

$250 used on Amazon.
$275 refurbished
$300 New

By the way, just got my Woot Samsung HZ30W digital camera with 15X optical zoom. (That camera is loaded with features including smile detection, 720p HD recording and wide angle, that's what the "W" stands for in the model name.)

Wow oh wow, what a great deal and zombtastic camera. I was hoping to see it in the Woot-Off because it will make a great gift (I decided to keep this one for myself.

And this if coming from someone who has a Canon S90 and Panasonic LX3.

Now I gotta spend more coin for this. Sigh... no rest for the weary.

OK Alfred.....why did you make your move??? I need one that can give me back super slo-mo replays.....for coaching golf and bowling. Will this do it?

Product Website

Ok so I bought a similar HD camera to this earlier this month. A word to those of you who plan on doing video editing: it's tricky in HD!!! The file sizes tend to get fairly massive, so unless you happen to have a 64-bit OS and 64-bit editing software, you'll be struggling to make footage of any significant length.

I recently made a 5-minute video shot from 1080p source, edited using Premiere CS3 (a 32-bit app). I ended up down-converting the source to 720p and had to work on projects no longer than a minute at a time to keep from running up against the 2GB limit (which causes Premiere to crash).

Holy cow though, HD footage is great! Especially when you play it back on a nice big monitor.

The time lapse feature interested me. I wanted to see it in action, so I found a video on Youtube.

deathincarnate wrote:So, is this thing's output camcorder quality or flip-video quality? Is the video going to be soft and have motion blur?

This is way better than any Flip (I own lots of digital camcorders, Zi8, Zi6, Flip HD, JVC Picsio, etc.) because of all the settings, pluse 20X optical zoom, memory and low light settings. Before this I have been reluctant to pay $300 to $500 for one of these and have never even seen them at a low price on Craig's or eBay.

Oh, there is another guy on YouTube who posts videos like I do. He used this exact model for his videos and they look zombtastic.

This is "dedicated camcorder" quality, IMHO.

Best Buy
$400 (on sale)

Buy.com
$315

Dell
$370

Walmart
$400

Overstock
$351

edit: messed up tags.

Oh no!

It appears Woot! has found out The Secret©.

Better batten down the hatches and prepare for The Lawsuit©.

Hokiepoker wrote:OK Alfred.....why did you make your move??? I need one that can give me back super slo-mo replays.....for coaching golf and bowling. Will this do it?

The best video camera I could find for a reasonable price that is capable of slow motion: Sanyo VPC-FH1A. It can do 240 fps at roughly SD resolution, and 600 fps at pretty-much-unusable resolution.

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Sanyo-VPC-FH1A-Video-Digital-Photos/dp/B002Q4VC9G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287724368&sr=8-1

zzzaap wrote:How much hours of video can this camera take with a fully charged battery?

I don't have this exact model, mine's like the GZ-HM200 (iirc), has the same specs as this (20x optical, 1080p, etc), but with dual sd card slots. I use an 8gb & 16gb cards and recording time is about equally matched to the battery (130m). When I had 2x 8gb cards and would fill up the cards before running out of battery.

I previously had a Samsung HD flash camcorder (seen on Woot a few times), and the battery life absolutely SUCKED!

I'd say I'm pretty satisfied with the battery life of this guy. With the 8gb internal, you'll always fill that up before killing the battery.

Main thing I noticed, when you open & close the lcd, it goes into a sleep/ready mode and isn't fully off, thus running the battery down faster. If you use the power button to power off after your shots, you'll be even better off.

NightGhost wrote:Product Website

Everio-specific Manufacturer Website

GluonConcerto wrote:OK so I bought a similar HD camera to this earlier this month. A word to those of you who plan on doing video editing: it's tricky in HD!!! The file sizes tend to get fairly massive, so unless you happen to have a 64-bit OS and 64-bit editing software, you'll be struggling to make footage of any significant length.

I recently made a 5-minute video shot from 1080p source, edited using Premiere CS3 (a 32-bit app). I ended up down-converting the source to 720p and had to work on projects no longer than a minute at a time to keep from running up against the 2GB limit (which causes Premiere to crash).

Holy cow though, HD footage is great! Especially when you play it back on a nice big monitor.

Listen to this folks. Speaks wise.

While HD videos from these dedicated camcorders are zombtastic, you computer needs to be fairly new to handle any kind of editing. You need a good video card, 3GB of RAM (XP can only use 3GB of 4GB RAM sticks) and a prosumer editing program that can handle large files, like Ulead Video Studio or Apple's software.

OK, found a youtube video for the exact model.

The A.I.S. or Advanced Image Stabilization sounds like it's really electronic stablization from the description. Optical image stabilization is far superior to any electronic method. Canon, Panasonic and Sony use optical image stabilization. Sanyo and I guess this JVC use electronic.

Does anyone know:

- How much you can record (at highest quality) on an 8gb card? on a 16gb?

- What format does it record in? (I'm a big "open standards" guy)

Thanks!

Here is all you need to see:

A YouTube demo with bikini clad babes on the beach. Check out the flesh tones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAe1cRs2xxI

What better way to stay out of trouble.

You: "Honey, I'm just looking at this because it's a sample video of this Woot camcorder I'm thinking of buying."

Honey: "Why are you pausing it in full screen mode, only on the women in bikinis?"

You: Thought bubble: "DOH!"

Bonus Tip: Pause every few seconds starting at 22 seconds into the video.

Bonus Tip: If you hear footsteps quickly scan to the 39 second minute marker.

psm321 wrote:How much you can record (at highest quality) on an 8gb card? on a 16gb?

According to the vendor site listed above, 1 hour 50 minutes for 8gb chip.

psm321 wrote:Does anyone know:

- How much you can record (at highest quality) on an 8gb card? on a 16gb?

About 45m & 80m.

psm321 wrote:
- What format does it record in? (I'm a big "open standards" guy)

MTS is the file extension, avchd format.

Hokiepoker wrote:OK Alfred.....why did you make your move??? I need one that can give me back super slo-mo replays.....for coaching golf and bowling. Will this do it?

Personally I'd go with this camera: http://exilim.casio.com/products_exfh25.shtml

For your purposes. There are better solutions, but not for the price at which you can find this camera on-sale. It does 720p regular speed video, and has other settings for (lower resolution) 210, 420, and 1000 frames-per-second video. Quite honestly you'll very rarely need more than the 210fps video, which is good because at every higher speed the resolution drops out of necessity.

Of the high speed functions, my favorite is the "she walked into the room" feature. It allows you to toggle between 30 (normal speed) and 210fps. It's really cool.

If you're looking for audio, it's mono, but my experience is that it is highly adaptable for this type of camera. It sounds equally clear in a very quite room and at a rock concert. I've never once overloaded the audio.

It also has true wide angle, 20x zoom, 40fps PHOTOS, high-speed flash, a bunch of really cool automatic modes (that could not actually be achieved otherwise by simply changing settings manually) and a bunch of other stuff. My model, the EX-FH20, I bought on a whim last year and I've never regretted it. If you don't want to shell out for that EX-FH25, there's honestly almost no difference at all between it and its predecessor (my model) except that mine costs notably less.

It definitely has its quirks that you'd have to get used to, but I get some great still shots and video out of it very regularly.

When looking for sample vids I would check for ones that have a lot of motion and also ones that are taken indoors under indoor home lighting. This will show you how the camera performs in the situations you will most likely be using it in and the things that give most camcorders trouble. Fast motion and indoor lighting. A day at the beach or a nature shot is close to useless.

I'm very tempted to pick up this camera

Why can't I find anywhere what resolutions and framerates this records in? The product website says it OUTPUTS in 1080p60, but it does not say anything about recording in 1080p60. Is it even 1080p30, or is this another 1080p24?

I think that this is a great deal and camcorder, especially for the price, and I'd snap it up in a minute if I could afford it, as I've been having my eyes on camcorders for years, but have never had enough spare dough to afford one.

Great deal for those who can afford it.

Cheapest I can see elsewhere is in the $300's.

I'll just drool over it for a while..

Another good HD video editor is Cyberlink PowerDirector. It's a great program for beginners and YouTube posters.

Here's is a demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYWWVoWNl6c&NR=1&feature=fvwp

And Cyberlink:

http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector/overview_en_US.html

I was all set to pull the trigger...

Yet, having been burned by my last JVC purchase in that it used files that I could not easily edit...

I was concerned and read the following..
"MTS Files%uFF0Cthe AVCHD video file format, created by newer digital video cameras, such as Sony, Panasonic ,cannon and other HD camcorders. It bases on the MPEG-2 transport stream and supports 720p and 1080i HD video formats, can only be 2 GB in length.."

So if I understand this... it means I might fill up 4 gig on a card, but the computer won't be able to read more than 2 gig? So only viewable on the camera itself?

Is there a good place to find sample videos in general when camcorder shopping, other than youtube? When I watch a youtube sample I can't really tell if the crappy quality is due to youtube compression or the camcorder.

Here's a video I shot with mine on 1080p in somewhat low-light. It was dusk, but up at about 2500 feet.

Gives you an idea of the image stabilization, which I feel is somewhat lacking when compared to my old Samsung.

OK, I just ordered one but Woot doesn't have the method of shipping listed. If anybody on Woot's staff is reading this, could you tell me if it's going to be FedEx ground or SmartPost? :-(

What am I missing? I can't find the format of the data. Is it mp4, mov, or what?

mystery250 wrote:I think that this is a great deal and camcorder, especially for the price, and I'd snap it up in a minute if I could afford it, as I've been having my eyes on camcorders for years, but have never had enough spare dough to afford one.

Great deal for those who can afford it.

Cheapest I can see elsewhere is in the $300's.

I feel your pain.

After buying lots of Woot-Off stuff and other camcorders / cameras, I thought I could put my wallet away, at least for a few days.

Alas, I spent the last of my "funny money" on this (but like I said, I have been looking at these for about a year and could never find one at a price I wanted to pay).

I don't think I should log on to Woot for a spell.

Anybody here edited these files before? How hard to edit? What software did you use? Is this giong to be easy to make a movie then burn it to dvd? Or is this going to be like my last everio? Not one dvd to date from that.

fantumfighter wrote:What am I missing? I can't find the format of the data. Is it mp4, mov, or what?

Not to worry, this is an advanced form of MP4, basically high definition video as super compressed file sizes (bit rate).

Some cell phones that record in 720p HD are using H.264, but when you look at the file extensions it they will show up as *.mp4 (and some GSM cell phone HD videos have the *.3gp extension and are structurally based on MPEG-4, H.264).

Here's a not plain English explanation:

H.264/AVC is a video coding standard of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group.

The main goals of the H.264/AVC standardization effort have been enhanced compression performance and provision of a “network-friendly” video representation addressing “conversational” (video telephony. e.g., Sprint's HTC Evo)and “nonconversational”
(storage, broadcast, or streaming applications.

H.264/AVC has achieved a significant improvement in rate-distortion efficiency relative to existing standards.

cnet review

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