With the best lighting conditions the video is great any other forget it. The audio? What audio, voices have to be yelling to be picked up and be heard on playback. There is no memory card if you're thinking of taking photos.

JVC Camcorders are highly UNreliable. Once they begin to display errors, you are done. This may occur very shortly after purchase. I received the infamous "Unit in safeguard mode error E04" and that was the end of it. Got some other errors. I did everything the camera (and instructions) told me to do...change the batter, bought a new battery, cleaned the head etc... But it just does not matter. You will get errors. And once you have these errors, the camera refuses to work. And in some cases, it refuses to simply stay ON long enough to do anything at all, including getting your tape out of it.
There are too many other GOOD digital camcorders out there. Don't buy JVC.

I spent some time trying to find a Minidv camcorder under $400 that had great low light capabilities. I ended up with JVC's GR-D33, and here's what I found after shooting some test footage and making a DVD:

The picture quality of footage shot outside was outstanding and never looked digital. The low light capabilities are in fact impressive. Footage shot in my basement (less light than a "low light situation") was clear and wasn't too pixilated. There is a neat backlight feature that cancels out background light to record detail of the subject in the foreground. The motor noises from the camera and the zoom can be heard on tape only when recording in quiet situations, but this shouldn't be a problem under any normal circumstances. My Windows XP system saw the camera when I Firewire'd it to the computer. I captured footage in the native DV format, edited it, made a DVD to watch on TV, and was extremely impressed by the quality of the picture. This is a fantastic no-frills camera with great low light performance, and is a steal at the price.

DO NOT buy JVC products. The digital units in general have a VERY high failure rate and JVC turns a blind eye to it's customers. They are happy to charge you 50% or better to perform ineffective repairs to the units which last a very short time. The most common error is "Unit in safeguard mode error E04" which can occur within days of purchase. Save yourself the hassel and by anything other than a JVC product.

I bought this as an upgrade from my VHS-C camcorder. I tested it against my roommates' Canon ZR80 and Panasonic GS9.

The video quality in low-light situations was suprisingly good, given what I had heard about most digital camcorders' abilities. The video quality in outdoor situations was even better. It's not up to spec with a Sony, but it's way cheaper, and it outdoes the more expensive Canon ZR. The GS9 was about the same in quality.

However, the camcorder didn't seem to handle combined bright/low-light situations all that well. While it had no problem filming dark regions (shaded/indoors) from a brightly lit area, when filming brightly-lit regions from indoors, the camcorder recorded white streaks that partially obscured whatever was being filmed. I had this problem with the ZR80 and the GS9, so it may just be an issue with low end camcorders in general.

The camcorder had no problem focusing when zooming below 20x magnification, though above 24x, it had noticeable difficulty focusing in low light. It couldn't focus at all above 40x in either bright or low light even with highly contrasting backgrounds and scenery. It shares this problem with the GRD73 and GRD93. The GS9 and ZR80 were noticeably better at focusing at these magnifications.

Though it offers the option to record photos as "stills", the quality wasn't very good. It was also difficult and time-consuming to retrieve these "stills" because the camcorder doesn't use a flash card to store them. I ended up sticking with my digital camera for taking pics; the low quality setting was better than the high quality setting on the camcorder.

I had no problems with audio. The motor, which could be heard during recording and playback (on the camcorder) was not recorded to the video and was not audible when played back on a tv or computer. However, it is very loud, and quickly became annoying. The GS9 recorded a barely noticeable shrill, but the ZR80's motor drowned out softer sounds and was very noticeable on playback (using a TV or computer).

The camcorder doesn't come with the cable needed to hook it up to a computer, but any Firewire card (aka i.Link or ieee 1394) you buy comes with the cable, so that's not much of an issue.
However, I was peeved that most of the packaged software were demo or trial versions.

Excellent Proformer GREAT video in any filming condition. I got 1 hour 48 mins of battery power from this camera. and all these errors that everyone is talking about is fixible. To fix just turn mode selector to manual setting then slide on the battery and hold the stop button then go to menu go to factory reset. It works because I have done it 2 times already. and jvc in japan tell me so. I bought mine there.

I was very happy with this camcorder....until it died on me after 10 months. I bought this for the basketball team I coach (to tape games). It was used a total of 25 times, and then it started getting error codes. It irrepairable, and I'm stuck buying a new one. Invest in a slightly more expensive model (by a DIFFERENT company). It well worth the money.

I can tell you from personal experience with JVC mini camcorders that purchasing one is an expensive mistake. Even with a protection plan from Circuit City, Best Buy, etc., the units are EXTREMELY fragile (esp. the cassette loading/ejecting apparatus) and the now infamous "E04 Safeguard Mode" (go ahead, Google it) message will eventually appear and that will be the end of recording digital videos with a JVC mini DV camera. Further, JVC support is nonexistent with regard to these error messages and how to correct them.

This camera is very small, and works great. It is easy to use, and great for travelling. I am not a technical person, but I don't mind using this camcorder.

I purchased this DV camera approx. 2 years ago. It is now non-functional. The camera turns on, but does not record. So far, I have used it to record no more than 10 tapes. At this point, the only thing this camera can do for me is play back tapes. The recording capability has completely malfunctioned.

Not just this JVC camcorder, but all of them will have the "safeguard mode error" pop up and the unit will be rendered useless at that point. Just say NO to JVC.

With an excellent price of only $250 you can't ask for more in such a great camera.