I really like the camera and am very satisfied. Only complaint is that the battery lasts barely 45 minutes and it takes a while to xfer the video into my computer for manipulation. Otherwise, plenty of features.

Got this right before a trip to Disney World. Read just enough of the manual to get the basics. It worked great. It is small, light weight easy to use. Easy to switch between video and stills. The video quality is pretty good. Picture quality is also good. It was great to have both decent video and stills from the same small camera. The only downside is the battery life, it only lasts a little over an hour. Not really enough for a full day. I haven't used any of the included software. Transferring files from camera to PC is simple enogh just using windows and Ulead video studio works great with JVC's .mod files. Just get a bigger battery and use the included battery as a back-up and you have the perfect Disney camera.

The JVC GZMG255 is a great little video recorder packed with features. Its small and light weight, and fun to use. Easy to get the video off the unit via USB and burn to DVD. The only downfall is JVC includes the BN-VF808 battery which only gives about 1 hour of run time. If you want to upgrade to the next battery BN-VF815 it will cost you an additional $70.00 for 2 1/2 more hours of run-time. Overall would give the unit 5 stars for ease of use and video quality, however -1 star for JVC cheaping' out on battery life!!!

Excellent product, direct DVD works great - Low battery life

Although missing from the product description, this camera (via the included dock) has Firewire. So I got a 4-pin to 6-pin firewire cable, hooked up to my Mac, and iMovie instantly recognized the camera and imported the clips. No conversion or intermediate steps required. This capability also comes standard with the GZMG155, but the 255 has superior resolution and a flash instead of the light. I started with the GZMG130, but the still camera was worthless. The 255 has great capability for video and stills. The USB port is still available for file transfer, and iPhoto opens right up when you connect.

Please read the other detailed reviews here....my review is more for MAC users.

For MAC users....This product works best with iLife '08. Clip in the firewire or usb and open iLife '08 and the clips start downloading - very simple. You can find a way to make it work with '06 but it involves changing the MPEG-2 formats (.mod files) over to a viewable format on your MAC. You can download DVdownload or Streamclip to make this happen, but it is convoluted.

Other than that, this is a fantastic camera. The quality of the still photos are great and even on the lowest setting the digital movie shots are crisp. It's light, its clean and simple. I looked at the Sony, Panasonic and other JVC hard drive camcorders - this one, hands down, is the top of the heap (for the money). Looking for a good hard drive camcorder - look no further!

I use this camera for recording my daughters' gymnastics and basketball/volleyball events. Works great and I can just throw it in my digital camera bag. As stated in other reviews, the still camera feature is OK, but not great. Fine in a pinch.

Unfortunately, the thing that makes it so sweet (compact size) also works against it, if only slightly. For any man with man-sized hands, this camera will be slightly difficult to operate. When your right hand is holding the camera through the grip, your fingers and thumb will extend past the button positions. You'll have to bend your fingers to work the controls. Because of this, starting and stopping the recording feature is sure to introduce a little shake into the video. Use your other hand to steady the camera or use a monopod. Very much a keeper as far as I'm concerned.

Because each recording creates a different file on the enclosed HDD, be sure to stop and start the recording more than you might on other tape-driven cameras.

Windows Media Player will play the .MOD files created with this camera. Windows Movie Maker (included with Vista) will also read these files and allow you to easily add text and transitions. A utility mentioned in another review, SDCopy Beta available from Sektionschef, is a must if you record at 16x9. It's the only way I've been able to set the 16x9 flag on the files and have them play back in the proper format.

Windows Movie Maker will also rotate the video if you take it vertically instead of horizontally.

Using the dock to transfer files to my PC is a snap. It also charges the battery (but not at the same time as the file transfer). Camera must be switched ON for file transfer, OFF for battery charge.

VERY happy with this purchase.

Received this yesterday. quite easy to use but I found a blue dot on the image on the LCD view finder as well as on the recorded video.

So i am working through the process of exchanging this.

will let you know what happens.

so my rating is temporary
-Subrata

JVC GZ-MG255 Is A Winner Larger F1.2 Super Bright Lens Larger 2MP Larger
1/4 inch CCD.
I have just receive my JVC Everio GZ-MG255 Camcorder on Oct.25th that was shipped to me over night next day delivery.I have already made a test Video of my home town and it came out very good.Am very pleased with my GZ-MG255 Camcorder with 30GB needs No Tape,No Disc.I am planning to used
this Camcorder for taking Video's only No Digital Photo's.I am going to usethis new Camcorder for my vacation next year to London,England,on Orient Express Train,Venice,ltaly,Rome,ltaly. Donald Szymanski Oct.28,2008

We bought this camcorder after the birth of our first son. Fifteen months later it stopped working out of the blue. We sent it to the authorized service center and were told that the main board was corroded. They said the reason for the corrosion was possibly humidity or long-term water leak. We are absolutely certain that the camcorder did not get any water. JVC's customer service was a joke - they did not even respond to our complaint. We basically lost $500 by buying this product because we used it only for 15 months. We will never buy another JVC product again. EVER.

I'm loving this video camera. It's small and lightweight and does a great job with low light conditions.

One thing to note is that I had read in a review of a similar model from JVC that you should turn off the "auto-gain" feature. I do not recommend doing this with this model. The auto-gain is what makes it do a great job with low light. I messed up a video the first day I owned this because I had turned that off and then forgot about the setting. I was cursing how dark the video was. Once I found the auto-gain and re-enabled it, the video quality was great. It was the difference between night and day - literally.

I'm a Mac user, and this camera works very well with iMovie '08. I tried it on a different machine with iMovie '06 installed, and it wasn't recognized at all. So if you buy this camera, make sure you have a newer Mac which can run iMovie '08 because otherwise you won't be able to use this footage without jumping through lots of hoops.

Oddly enough, I couldn't get my MacBook (running 10.5.1) to recognize this camera when I connected it via firewire. But it works great over USB.

Another great feature with this camera is its ability to take any analog video input and digitize it. I hooked up my old Hi-8 camcorder to it and was able to get a better quality digitization from the camera than I had with a dedicated Analog to Digital DV converter. I was able to digitize about 20 tapes from my old camcorder in short order, and get them all imported into iMovie with ease.

The auto white-balance is really poor indoors. I generally switch it to manual mode specifically to correct the white balance. The preset white balance settings aren't much to write home about, but the manual white balance setting is a breeze to configure and results in much better video when you use it.

Lastly, I can comment on the still picture quality. It really sucks, and is the reason I don't give this a 5 star rating. I admit I'm something of a camera snob and shoot with a top of the line D-SLR, but my first digital camera I owned (2 MP Olympus) took far superior photos to this, and that was 8 years ago. Again, the white balance is way off on this - use manual white balance. The flash blows out all highlights on any subject and I just couldn't believe the pixilation. Again, I used to own a 2 MP camera, and I know what kind of quality I can get from a 2 MP camera. This unit doesn't deliver that quality.

In summary, this is a great video camera and a poor photo camera.

I recently purchased this camcorder after much research and it has been everything I had hoped. I had a few requirements, compact, inexpensive, easy to use and ability to create DVD's. Well, this camcorder does the trick. Right out of the box, I installed the battery and charged it for a few hours and then began filming. I could not believe the quality, it comes out very nice, even in the low indoor lighting. The still shots I took we not awesome, but about the same as my digital camera. I have yet to see a great indoor/low light picture from a digital camera. The feature that I enjoy the most, is the ease of creating DVD's. I have never worked with video editing software much less make a DVD. You just load the software and plug in your camcorder to the usb cable and follow the prompts. I have to say for the price, this has been a great purchase and would recommend this camcorder.

I rarely post reviews like this, but I put allot of time into purchasing this camera and I am sure there are other people out there in the same boat as I was. I wanted a camera for the primary purpose of shooting some video of my newborn son. I wanted to be able to quickly edit the clips and I wanted to be able to easily get the clips onto sites like YouTube. Compared to what is out there I am not aware of a better camera for this purpose.

This is the first camcorder that I have ever purchased. I have used many, even going all the way back to ones that recorded on a full size VHS tape and hung on your shoulder. The times surely have changed. For my purposes this camera is absolutely perfect. I have a few very minor gripes, but overall I could not be more happy with it.

PROS: Controls: They are easy to navigate and make sense even to a novice.

Size: This thing is as tiny as people describe. It fits into the palm of my hand and even fits into my pocket with ease.

Connections: Everything from a flash card, to USB, to firewire. I am not aware of another camera out there with as man connections as this one.

Price: The cost of this thing has dropped considerably. I picked mine up off of e bay for 340. A pretty sweet deal I think. When you start to factor in the cost of other formats, tapes dvr's, etc. I think it is a no-brainer to go HDD.

CONS: The dreaded .mod file. This next paragraph will save you hours and hours of time. Yes, this camera records in .mod in some apparent trick to get you to commit to JVC's software package which based on every review I have read stinks more than seeing the Giants win the Superbowl. Fear not though, because I have spent the better part of a snowy day bashing through this dreaded format. Do some searches and you will find more than enough information than you need to circumvent this file issue, but if you want to save your time searching here are the steps that I use.

1. Rename the files from .mod to .mpg A program such as (better file rename) makes this time consuming task an absolute breeze. You will have it done in seconds.
2. Delete the .moi files (you do not need them).
3. I have successfully been using NeroVision from Nero 7 Ultra Edition. It works well and is quite simple. You can edit your clips, add effects, and do whatever you want with them. I believe you can obtain this version on the cheap now.
4. The pause button. When you pause and restart it starts a new file, so later you end up with many files if you pause often. (This a minor annoyance).

I have read this camera getting pretty negative reviews other places and I just cannot see why. Granted I am not a professional, nor do I calim to be one, but for what I wanted, this camera is perfect. I would not hesitate to purchase one again. If you are on the fence, look no further.

JVC IS THE WORST PRODUCT I EVER OWNED, Do NOT Buy This Unles You Want To See How Bad Customer service can get. Save yourself the trouble, Mine stopped working after 13 months. You could not even tell it was used. It had less than 10 hours on it. Run do not walk away from this one.

This is a great camera - back up is easy. Negotiating the menus can be a challenge, not the best interface, but learnable. I agree with the other reviews that say buy the extra battery; it is well worth it. The camera comes with a docking station that makes it easy to connect to the computer to back up etc. I have been using the camera to convert all my old VHS tapes to digital and it works like a charm. The process is very easy. The only glitch I have found in this (and with any new videos as well) is that the files are AVI and my old Vegas Movie Studio software does not recognize them. The software that comes with the camera is helpful in that you can convert the files to mpeg1 that can be read by almost anything. Highly recommend the camera

Picture quality is very good, but not as good as HD. The software came with this camcorder is terrible. It only allows 50 scenes max to burn into a standard DVD format even if all 50 scenes are less than 4G or 2 hours. I have 120 scenes, but less than 1.5 hours and it still required 3 blank DVDs.

I'm sure I can't give a better tech review than c681 has given. So I will say how it feels

Satisfying: easy to use, but you do need to get the feel of it like anything else, use a tripod and the remote mostly. Getting a feel for the zoom on the cam is the main thing. The remote is full speed, so not real useful zoom buttons.

I agree with c681 about low light recording quality, real good, I find a big huge zoom capability is not functional for a grandbaby crawling on the living room floor, for instance. If I wanted big, magnification zoomed I would not be buying a little minicam.

I've seen discussions about Firewire or ieee640 or whatever. USB works fine as does 6 to 4 pin firewire. This video cam will not be a webcam. You can import mpeg2 files into imove or play files in ichat. Can't go into how here.

It's a machine, nothing is perfect, but WoW I'm happy.

I agree 100% with previous reviews - I tested, side-by-side, the 255, the new 330, and the new 730. Hands-down, under every possible scenario and lighting condition, the older 255 is BY FAR SUPERIOR. C681's review is 100% dead on.

See my review under GZ-MG330 for full details.

BUY THE 255 over any of the newer JVCs - none offer the larger f1.2 lens, and it IS the difference!!!

I read a lot of the other reviews before buying this camera, which was a BIG help. Just got back from Hawaii and using the new camcorder for two week and the movies it makes are UNBELIEVABLE. A relative that went on the trip also bough a HD camcorder (different brand) and we played our different movies back on the same TV and this camcorder provided better clarity. When I looked at their camcorder I thought OH, OH, because it was a lot heavier, but overall this unit was better.

Trying to think of a negative to provide and cannot think of any.