7 hours recording, additional/separate space for pic via an SD memory card.

Photo quality not bad for a combined camcorder/camera @2M Pixel

Downsides:
Bit of pain having to buy a separate charger and there is no case for
protection so you have to buy your own
Recommend also buy high capacity battery and high definition lens which
makes a big difference to response times and image quality (BUT
it a) doesn't work as well with the photo camera mode as opposed to camcorder mode and b) (specially photos) when light is dim, it is useless. Or at least the one I bought for my price range, better quality HD lenses may do better.
If you don't buy a HD lens, then buy a UV protection lens which stops unwanted scratches on the real lens.

I agree with the many other users who have experienced the "Condensation, Operation Paused" defect on their JVC GR-whatever. Despite numerous others reporting this problem, JVC says its not a recognized problem. I would disagree - it is a recognized problem, but its your problem, not theirs.

This unit has a very user friendly interface and is very easy to figure out for the average consumer. I work in the motion picture industry as a cameraman, so I do have a unique perspective. It does take a while to figure out the software and the the best way to download the video, but once you get it, it's as good as apple pie. The one downside is this unit's operating temperature. It gets very hot the longer it's powered. But that's the price you have to pay with a hard drive camcorder this small. Even with the state of the art Professional High Definition cameras in the motion picture industry, you still have over heating issues as well as power consumption issues. Eventually this will be solved, but for now, this is as good as it gets.

Bought this camera last month to replace my 2 year old MiniDV camera. Though I am impressed with the small size and low weight, the video quality is not as fabulous as others are suggesting, even after tweaking the settings. Recording outdoors in direct sunlight is good, the colors are fresh, but not so good when trying to shoot something in shadow. Trying to shoot inside in low light, even with the gain on, was extremely poor. The video quality is nothing close to High Definition (HD), and in my opinion no better than my JVC MiniDV camcorder. I've viewed the video on both my 19" LCD and my 65" HDTV and remain unimpressed with the video quality (most notably pixelation when filming moving objects). So, I guess it's going to go back and I'll wait for something that provides HD quality recording at a reasonable price.

Bought this for a trip to southern Africa. It is my first camcorder - I was always turned off by the idea of lugging around tapes or blank DVDs. I have used ultrazoom digital cameras for all my other trips, so I am familiar with making manual adjustments for different situations.

I was amazed at 1) how easy the Everio was to learn and use, 2)how small and light it is, and 3) the large storage capacity of the HDD.

I had to set manual adjustments for lighting and exposure a lot of the time. The AUTO setting is best when it's bright sunlight and fairly even brightness of objects - other times of the day, or when there are dark AND light objects in the field of view, you're better off using MANUAL. Video I shot at sunset and sunrise came out good with very little grain, but it is best if you use MANUAL setting and keep the camera stable.

The zoom control is pretty sensitive - takes some getting used to being careful about how fast you zoom the lens.

Would have liked this model to have a light for night video rather than just a flash for still photos.

The battery recharged quickly and I bought a second one from a third party. The battery life is as advertised, which isn't bad considering the power it must take to run the big LCD display and the hard drive.

I think the video quality is excellent. Incorporated the video along with digital stills into a travel DVD we produced. The quality when displayed on my large LCD flat panel TV is great. (Remember though that this is NOT an HD camcorder.)

On my trip, I ran into a fellow who had the new Everio model with the 3CCD sensors. Our videos of the same scenes looked very similar in quality.

It's simple to edit the video files with the supplied Cyberlink software. Upgrade to the full version is reasonably priced compared to buying Adobe Premiere Elements.

Overall, I thought this was a good first camcorder purchase. I'll carry it along on other trips.

This camcorder is great, however it only has a 10X optical lens whereas even their less expensive camcorders have at least a 30X optical lens.

Our camcorder was missing the lithium battery and the lens cover didn't fit and the JVC factory refused to do anything about it. They suggested I call the dealer to see if anything could be resolved, but we ordered it online and it's difficult to get repairs/replacements such as this.

When buying one of these camcorders, be certain that it contains a U after the product model, since I believe the "U" refers to United States.

P.S. If you are a Mac user and want to import these videos into iMovie i have found the perfect app. (note: i have no affiliation with them). I searched around for weeks and tried every app i could get a demo for and I have to share that VisualHub by techspansion is the best of the best. it was effortless to install and use. I didnt change any defaults and it converted the widescreen .mods perfectly into dv format which i then imported into imovie. the jvc included app Capty does not do this, it squashes the dv files and you are forced to use other means to get the aspect right.
visual hub is also universal binary and thus very fast on the mac...
the demo is free and i highly recommend it to mac users.

until iMovie can read .mod files i can live with this one extra step!

Enjoy your Everio!

CZR

I have only really used this for some family videos. Plus marks are for size and weight. I put the videos onto a 42" plasma and they look fine. I am sure you can get better quality but at the end of the day if you want to make a Hollywood production then you dont buy a $700 Camcorder. Another down point is the Autofocus which can be a bit slow or just not work. Tends to be poor in low light, sometimes you have to move away from subject then back again to get it to focus. 10x Zoom is fine, Battery life is not great but I suppose you can upgrade the battery to a higher mah.

Overall I like it, I am sure HDD Camcorders will improve in time to come but I am happy with what I have.

Fantastic camera, no disks, no tape, point and click for hours of easy recording, simple process to download to computer for storage of movies.

We love this camera. It is very easy to use and is especially easy to download and burn onto DVDs. This makes sharing very easy. We bought this one because of the f1.2 lens which lets in more light. It is still somewhat lacking when it comes to indoors but it is definitely better than the other JVC cameras without the f1.2 lens.

Going to a HDD camcorder from a miniDV camcorder was like going from a film camera to a digital camers. The camera will also record directly to SD memory cards. (about 50+ minutes of normal quality video on a 2GB card)
I would recommend getting an extra battery and external charger. I paid about $42 for a 1400mah battery and charger. having short battery run time and built in charger is just plain stupid on the part of JVC. If you aren't willing to pay for an external charger and extra battery you are going to be missing out on a lot of video shots.

I have had my Everio Camcorder for 1 week. During that time I have been getting familiar with its great features and accompanying software by taking short clips of the surrounding area. I am completely satisfied, and would recommend the GZMG77 to anyone. The Zoom is super, videos are very sharp and clear. It is very easy to use, just read and follow ALL the instructions. Great value for the dollar. I will write another review in about 6 months.

This camera is very easy to use, takes just minutes to get going. Good value for the money, but still pictures are a joke, sound quality and settings could be better and transferring clips from camera to PC is from 80s. Excellent picture quality in this price class in normal conditions, but will take a bit more practise to learn different settings e.g. for bright back light or reflecting light. Buy an extra battery if you decide to go with this JVC.

I researched for weeks before deciding on the Everio and I am pleased with my purchace. It takes very decent stills w/ flash, the low light lens allows for twilight camcordering with out a need for a video light and the size,etc is perfect for my usage.

JVCs are great if you don't need any accessories or never need customer service. if you do you are in trouble. I bought a JVC video recorder last year and despite it being new it came without most of the accessories offered with it--things you'll probably need such as the cable to connect it to the TV and the one to connect it to the computer. I had to buy each of these for $40 each--they would not ship them, and also had to buy the software that was supposed to come with the camera. after all that, the leads broke and the camera started eating tape. the customer service was useless and I finally just threw it out. I had owned this JVC product for less than a year and will never buy another one.

This is a good camera. It has served well since I bought it a month ago. The only thing is that battery does not last more than 40 minutes when fully charged and there is no warranty on the battery. Mine is dead after one month. That is kind of disappointing. I had a Sony DCR-SR40. It had two hours battery life. JVC customer is not good like Sony or Canon.

I recently purchased this camcorder at Circuit City for around $750. It works very well and the video quality is very good.

VIDEO & SOUND: When viewing on the television, it is surprising how clear and crisp the video is and how realistic the sound is--there is no irritating tape or dvd recording humm, and people's voices sound natural--not like they are in a wind tunnel as with other camcorders. Also, the night video is quite good for a camera this size. I shot some video using only candlelight to illuminate people's faces, and the details were the same when I played it back as if I had been sitting right there. The pictures are also good quality, though not huge, and it is nice to be able to store them on the camera instead of my computer.

BATTERY LIFE: if you are going to be using this camcorder for periods longer than 45 minutes, buy an extra battery as it takes at least an hour to recharge.

SOFTWARE/COMPATIBLITY: I have a mac mini G4, and my biggest concern with buying this camera was whether or not it would be compatible. It processes video in MPEG-4 mode, which is not compatible with mac. However, after reading the manual, I found a solution to this problem.

To convert video for use with iMovie:
1. Install the Everio "Capty MPEG Edit EX" program provided with the camera.
2. When installed, open the program and select the "view" tab, the click "combine files."
3. Connect the camera to the computer using the USB cord provided and set camera on the play setting
4. Open the Everio harddrive that appears on the desktop.
5. Drag files with the extension .mod from the video folder to the "Capty MPEG" program--you will see thumbnails appear as the video takes.
6. After adding all of the files you want, click the "create" button on the "Capty" program
7. A format box will appear. Select Quick Time Movie
8. Another option will appear that allows you to convert to MPEG, DV, and QuickTime: Select "Quick Time" again.
9. Name your video in the next blank that appears
10. Click the button to start the creating process
11. It will take some time to create the video. After the video is created, look for the title in spotlight in the searchbar.
12. When you have located the file, open iMovie.
13. Drag the file into the "clips" section of iMovie.
14. You can now edit your WIDESCREEN movie in the iMovie program.

It sounds long and complicated, but the only "challenging" part is just waiting for it to format for quick time. I recommend not putting too many clips in at once so that it goes faster. It takes a little more time, but it's worth it to use iMovie, and it's faster and more efficient than many of the other methods I have seen.

I like the camcorder for video. It is very easy to use and takes a nice quality video. For pictures, however, not as good. Unless you can stand perfectly still the pictures tend to be a bit blurred.

Wow, I purchased a GVC MG-77u to shoot video. It does shoot decent video I guess. Here in is the problem I do not know because this thing is not reconized by any computer. It is a 30 Gb paper weight, except it will still shoot to memory card, which then can be removed, and video transfered. All this for $700.00. JVC website is lacking and if you think phone support is any better save you dime. I would say do not walk away run holding onto your wallet. It cost me $300.00 to get my data off this thing. and now I basically have a 2 Gb (Largest memory card it will take) camcorder. If anyone out there ends up in this position this guy JackRepairs com can help you get your data back, Whew. By the way just in case you do not think I know what I am doing leave that out of your thoughts as I am proficent in Windows, MAC, Linux and UNIX. This thing is a peice of Sheeezz, (Almost said it)and the company is worse.

About the only redeeming quality it has is that it does, in fact, record video. Other than that, I find numerous flaws and have multiple complaints. It is a camera that I record video _in spite of_.

1. My camera eats batteries very quickly. If a battery is left in the camera for more than two weeks, it becomes useless. I now have about five dead batteries thanks to this camera. It seems that every time I need to record something the battery is dead. Of course it's out of warranty and customer service won't talk to me over email.

2. JVC uses a bizarre, proprietary format - .MOD - that is essentially MPEG-2 with a strange audio format. **It is impossible to edit the files in Adobe Premiere** - a huge letdown. I had to go through hours of research and trial and error to try to get my files just to play in premiere. Why JVC couldn't have used a more universal format baffles me.

3. Video quality is merely average - about on par with an inexpensive point-n-shoot camera. It is interlaced, and I could not find a way to record progressive, so all motion looks jagged when played on a progressive screen like a computer. Another huge letdown.

4. The zoom control imparts clicks and pops to the video when it's used. Also, the zoom itself is very slow and actually varies with the focal length. E.g. If I hold it all the way down, the zoom moves at one speed from about 1x-6x and then slows down from 7x-10x.

5. Misc. - The wide end of the lens is too long of a focal length. I have to use a .5x adapter to get a decent wide shot. The camera has a long startup time - 4-5 seconds as it goes through a "JVC camcorder" animation. It also has no physical controls for manual settings - all must be done through a menu. There is no focus ring; trying to manually focus through a menu with a joystick is near impossible.