JVC Everio GZ-MG20 20 GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder w/25x Optical Zoom
By: JVC Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 17
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 On: 2006-11-28
First off, I want to say that the camera shoots pretty good footage outdoors, not at all superb quality, but passable for just archiving personal footage. Indoors is another story, out of the box the low-light conditions pretty much blacked out the playback.
After researching, and changing settings, with help from a review on a similar camera, the indoors picture is pretty good. With the lenses and filters I purchased for this it actually has it to a B-. What I did was set it to M mode, shutter speed to 1/30 and set it to cloudy. You can also gain up while in this mode for a brighter picture, but it does add some grain.
The hard drive is so easy and convenient. I didnt bother installing any of the included software because I use Sony Vegas to edit video. Sony Vegas doesnt recognize the MOD format the video files are saved in, so again I did a few minutes of research to find out that you can simple highlight the MOD part of the file name/extension, backspace 3 times and type MPG. This instantly converts it to MPG format, which Vegas and all of my other playback programs recognize.
Sound is great, for a built in speaker it was almost one of the best Ive heard on a simple video camera. The lense comes with threads to attach wide-angle lenses, and filters to make the picture even better... all in a camera a little over 5 inches long!
I was really pleased with this camera, and recommend it to anyone who really needs a good camera, but nothing extravagant- for people who rarely use it. It takes a few minutes of tweaking to get it right indoors, but most cameras arent cut and dry to begin with.
 On: 2006-08-16
I agree with the many other users who have experienced the "Condensation, Operation Paused" defect on their JVC GR-XXX. 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.
On: 2006-08-15
I agree with the many other users who have experienced the "Condensation, Operation Paused" defect on their JVC GR-XXX. 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.
 On: 2006-08-11
The 5 main reasons I purchased this camcorder:
1) Size. Its barely larger than a can of soda!!!
2) Hard drive. Nice not to not ever have to buy blank tapes or discs.
3) Ease of use. The controls are well designed. Had most everything figured out in no time.
4) Downloading to the computer is a breeze.
5) Reviews from other owners. Everyone seems to like it for the most part.
Very happy with my purchase!
On: 2006-06-16
The quality is awesome, the ergonomics is just super (the four way stick in the LCD for starters), the transfer capabilities are nice (just plug it in to ANY PC and it becomes an external hard drive with video files, although you have to rename the .MOD to .MPG), and the zoom/frame rate is great. (Upto 32X optical and .5-4000 fps - this is really good for shooting as you like).
For those who complain about the grainy stuff, try changing the frame rate yourself - lower frame rate for poorer lighting condition (so that the poor lighting gets registered on the CCD more slowly but rigidly), or change the white balance. I have had very little lighting problems , and that too only when shooting at really bad lighting conditions (in night for eg)...
Other than that, the camera is perfect for trips; its amazing to see that the product turns out to be as good and heavenly as it was advertised.. for the first time.
Some personal gripes (from the stand point of a HDD camcorder), are that you cant record from a video source directly :D, and that you need to wait for 4 seconds before you can start recording after switching it on (it shows the same JVC animation every time, possibly to warm up the HDD meanwhile), and that you need to recharge it often if you are shooting it with the provided battery. If you can add 90$ more the 4 hour battery will make this cam one of the best. Also the digital stills are like crap; I mean 640x480 stills, worse than the ones in the cell phones.
But the overall thing is that you can shoot the videos and then transfer and burn them to your DVDs.. the problem is, with such a camcorder you would want to shoot everything that moves and is colorful and waste the 20GB soon enough...
I have owned a JVC VCR way back, and it was pretty good too, and that made my judgement about a industry first HDD camcorder from JVC...
On: 2006-03-31
When we received the camera, it had been previously used. We were initially given a run-around, but Amazon gave us a good discount on the camera that made us happy. They couldnt replace it with a new one. The camera seems to have a sharp picture and excellent sound. It is amazingly small. It seems like a great choice for general home video. The software is a little daunting. Follow directions very carefully. The freedom from tapes and discs is nice feature... will also run longer w/o interruption to change discs or tapes.
On: 2006-03-26
this is a great camcorder the only problem i have is the battery life. other than that i love it. i have dropped it like 10 times and it still works.
On: 2006-03-21
Just got this camera recently. Id read a number of reviews suggesting the image quality wasnt too hot, but thought Id give it a try as Im really tired of trying to keep track of all the little tapes Ive accumulated over the years. Out of the box, I shot some video of the family in the house using only overhead lighting. Then I converted it to DVD (included software is very easy to use, but I wanted to use Nero. The file extensions are .mod, but Nero recognized it just fine). Yep. It was grainy and the color was lackluster. THEN I read the manual. As it turns out, the camera comes from the factory with the GAIN setting turned on. This really boosts the signal in low light conditions, but can result in a slightly grainy image. So I turned it off. That helped alot. Then, realizing that none of the walls in my house are white, I manually set the white balance (very easy to do with this camera) and WOW. Big difference. Colors are just right. I even filmed my daughter in her pink room and it came out right. Im liking this camera more and more everyday. Just be sure to read the manual and dont be afraid to tweak the settings to your situation.
So far, only two downsides: the VF707U battery it comes with is a wimp (about 50min record time) and the camera doesnt have a standard view-finder. However, this last point is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the camera is so small, it is a pleasure to carry it just about everywhere.
I recommend this camera if you dont mind a little learning curve, plan on buying another battery, and are tired of trying to keep track of little pieces of recording media. For me, Its making taking video fun again.
On: 2006-03-21
I bought this camera and I just love it. Forget about the issues some people mention here about low quality video, the trick is to change the camera settings for the environment you are recoding in. Just leaving it to the default settings do create grainy video in some situations, but change the settings and you will get gorgeous video quality. There is nothing wrong with the camera, it is all about the operator.
I love the internal harddrive. I did not want any disc or tape based systems, and this is perfect. Particularly convenient is it that this camera support SD cards, as my Casio digital camera uses that too --so I have a stack of them already that I now can use in both cameras.
The only thin missing is a nice case/bag for the camera. That and an extra battery or two is on top of my shopping list now.
Ill shoot my bride in my upcoming wedding, with this camera that is.... :-)
 On: 2006-03-10
Well all the reviews I have seen say it is a little grany, if by a little grany you meen looks like crap I would have to agree, the DVD quality is a DVD that has been run over by a truck... alot. Slow to focus crapy in low light.
Great concept, but it need better video quailty before I can say anything good about it.
On: 2006-02-18
Been a JVC movie man for many years, and decided to update the well-travelled Mini-tape model to the shiny new HDD MG20 (purchased in Dubai while on holiday). Lovely quality, easy to use....BUT DONT BUY IT before you check if the low-lighting results are acceptable to you. It might be fine for you, in which case this is a good buy, but not for us; colours faded, exceptionally grainy....even the software doesnt get it up to the levels we had from the old model.
Returned it to JVC, who returned it as being absolutely fine, and I have been told I must take it back to the retailer...IN DUBAI !!
So, this long-time JVC family are moving elsewhere. Recommendations appreciated.
On: 2006-02-17
Been a JVC movie man for many years, and decided to update the well-travelled Mini-tape model to the shiny new HDD MG20 (purchased in Dubai while on holiday). Lovely quality, easy to use....BUT DONT BUY IT before you check if the low-lighting results are acceptable to you. It might be fine for you, in which case this is a good buy, but not for us; colours faded, exceptionally grainy....even the software doesnt get it up to the levels we had from the old model.
Returned it to JVC, who returned it as being absolutely fine, and I have been told I must take it back to the retailer...IN DUBAI !!
So, this long-time JVC family are moving elsewhere. Recommendations appreciated.
On: 2006-02-05
Ok, I bought this for a Christmas present for my wife and she loves it. The first thing you notice is how small it is... I mean its tiny!
When I first heard about these I checked for reviews on them and the two sites I found reviews on both had mediocre scores. Much of the fuss on thse sites had to do with the video quality of the still images.
I think many felt mislead b/c in the description it says you can select from image sizes of 1152x864. 1024x768, and 640x480. What weve found out is that even though you can select the 1152x864, 1024x768, and 640x480 the digital stills are only 640x480 because the two higher sizes make the images look bad but the 640x480 size looks super.
Honestly, I didnt buy it for its digital camera capabilities (we love our Fugi e510) although its super convenient to have this available albeit only at 640x480 b/c you can switch back and forth between stills and video very easily.
I cant comment on the Mac capabilities other than it seems a little harsh to give the unit 2 stars b/c "you" didnt read the packaging correctly.
I really dont know what all the fuss is about where the video quality is concerned. We havent owned a camcorder since our last vsh-c which we were happy with as well. The videos at the highest setting looks great with very rich and true colors. The camera is eXtremely easy to setup and use from the time you take it out of the box until your first transfer over the very fast USB 2.0 connection.
Another great feature of this very small camera is the internal SD Card slot and the cameras ability to record both stills and video to this excellent removable media. Its very fast, super cheap (compared to others like memory stick and xD cards), and they already come in capacities up to 4gb.
I thought the SD Card would be soley for stills but was hoping the HDD would be removable, so this was a very nice surprise b/c like most PCs now-a-days our computers have the internal memory card readers so you can just pull the SD Card and pop it in your PC for editing, emails, burn to dvd, etc.
As far as dislikes go the only issue I had, which is really nitpicking, is that the buttons on the LCD are a bit small for my liking. Im a pretty big guy though so this may not even be an issue for many of you.
Im totally happy with this purchase!
On: 2006-01-07
The company does not let you know that it is not a user friendly camera for MAC...
it does say "optional Capty DVD for making DVD Video software provide seamless integration into the Apple Macintosh computer world"
... empasize the OPTIONALl. You have to buy it for 125$ more.
On: 2006-01-06
i bought it yesterday and going to return it today just because of its worst video quality....
yes...! if you can compromise video quality....than you can surely go for buying this....
no user friendly functions...complexity is everywhere..
hdd is not 20 GB...in my case its only 17.5 GB. and yes...very disappointed customer service....
nothing is good in this camcorder except good zoom and storage capacity....
video in night is worst ever......please dont waste your money to buy it....PLEASE
On: 2006-01-06
The company does not let you know that it is not a user friendly camera for MAC...
it does say "optional Capty DVD for making DVD Video software provide seamless integration into the Apple Macintosh computer world"
... empasize the OPTIONALl. You have to buy it for 125$ more.
 On: 2005-12-30
I like the idea of not having tapes or discs which limit your capabilities, recording time and efficiency. This saves you 50 to 75 percent in time not having to re-record the video files...just transfer the files directly from the camera.
Something needs to be mentioned about the review that says "Theres no Firewire (IEE1394)" - I am sure that guy feels quite silly making that statement seeing how USB2.0 is faster than Firewire. USB2.0 =480mbps / Firewire =400mbps - uh, duh.
As mentioned the cameras video files are named *.MOD, but are the same as *.MPG files and may be renamed so all apps can understand them.
This camera is ultra small and you will enjoy this feature, though the jacks and ports are sometimes hard to see if over the age of 40.
You will need a larger battery if you want any serious power time.
It comes with a nifty remote and the LCD looks marvelous even though the video is being compressed to mpeg-2 standards. Not for the serious high end user, but a great camera for family and everyday type purposes.
I love the idea of the built-in hard drive and tapeless/discless operation!
On: 2005-12-24
A good camcorder but quality of video image not quite as good as DV tape, even in good light. Low light capabilities also not as good,, even with gain up - the lenses in the better Everio units with the 15x zoom may be better in this regard. Yes, the files are ".MOD" extensions but just need to be changed to "MPG" and should then play in any media player with the MPEG-2 codec installed (if you computer can play DVD movies now, you should already have this codec installed). I play my videos on Windows Media Player. I didnt even install the supplied JVC software - WIN XP recognized the camera and it functions just like a flash drive from there. Very easy. Once you files are changed to ".MPG" extension they should be editable in most, if not all, video programs. I have no problems with Adobe Premiere STD, which is generally considered the industry standard. Battery life is only 1 hour - strongly recommend getting the 2 hours battery as an accessory. A very handy little camera that make it so much easier to work with your videos - no more capturing from DV tape required. And the 4 hour storage beats hauling around extra tapes and wondering what may be on them, can I record over, etc.... Ignore comments about lack of Firewire/IEEE1394, this is irrelevant. I transfer all my video on a Sony laptop using USB2, even though Sony favors Firewire. Bottom line, a very handy little camcorder if youre willing to sacrifice a bit of video quality for much better convenience.
On: 2005-11-23
Without a "DV"/1394(i.Link)port, it will be difficult to use with Windows Movie Maker or to send to your standalone DVD recorder. Using the analog audio/video jacks justs defeats the purpose of having an all digital camcorder.
On: 2005-11-15
I bought this camera before going on a recent cruise with the intention of documenting my trip through video. This is a great camcorder for making home videos. I took video during some of the shows that I went to on the cruise and the audio quality was fantastic. Playing it back at home on my home theatre system, it sounded like I was there at the show. The fact that it records directly onto a hard drive is a big plus and it makes viewing and editing very easy. You can easily review clips on the camcorder LCD itself, as a menu pops up that you can scroll through and play whatever clip you want. It also means you can easily just delete clips that you dont care to keep. For editing, you basically hook up the included USB cord to your computer, and your computer automatically recognizes the camera as an external hard drive. No additional software required for this! You then just copy or move the files onto your hard drive. Note that the files are stored as .MOD files. The only software I have found that recognizes .MOD extensions is the included Cyberlink software, however, all you have to do is change the file extension to .MPG and every other video editing and playback software will recognize it. The included Cyberlink software is very limited. I ended up downloading a free trial of their PowerDirector software to edit my video. I found this software suite to be an easy and powerful interface for editing my footage and I managed to make a great souvenir video of my trip, with background music, DVD titles, scene transitions etc. I plan to buy the software suite when my free trial is up.
The battery life is advertised to be only an hour. This may seem short, but for making home videos, shooting an hour of footage in one go is quite a lot. I never ran out of battery on the cruise, but then whenever I wasnt shooting, I had my camera plugged in and the battery re-charging in my cabin.
My only complaint with this camera is the image stabilization. Its fine up to about 12X zoom, but once you get past this, the images become very shaky and virtually unusable. You would need a tripod to get zoom past 12X. This is annoying considering that this camcorder is advertised as a 25X optical zoom. Its basically useless past 12X.
All is all I definitely would recommend this camcorder for its ease of use and the fact that you no longer have to worry about tape.
On: 2005-11-14
I bought this camera before going on a recent cruise with the intention of documenting my trip through video. This is a great camcorder for making home videos. I took video during some of the shows that I went to on the cruise and the audio quality was fantastic. Playing it back at home on my home theatre system, it sounded like I was there at the show. The fact that it records directly onto a hard drive is a big plus and it makes viewing and editing very easy. You can easily review clips on the camcorder LCD itself, as a menu pops up that you can scroll through and play whatever clip you want. It also means you can easily just delete clips that you dont care to keep. For editing, you basically hook up the included USB cord to your computer, and your computer automatically recognizes the camera as an external hard drive. No additional software required for this! You then just copy or move the files onto your hard drive. Note that the files are stored as .MOD files. The only software I have found that recognizes .MOD extensions is the included Cyberlink software, however, all you have to do is change the file extension to .MPG and every other video editing and playback software will recognize it. The included Cyberlink software is very limited. I ended up downloading a free trial of their PowerDirector software to edit my video. I found this software suite to be an easy and powerful interface for editing my footage and I managed to make a great souvenir video of my trip, with background music, DVD titles, scene transitions etc. I plan to buy the software suite when my free trial is up.
The battery life is advertised to be only an hour. This may seem short, but for making home videos, shooting an hour of footage in one go is quite a lot. I never ran out of battery on the cruise, but then whenever I wasnt shooting, I had my camera plugged in and the battery re-charging in my cabin.
My only complaint with this camera is the image stabilization. Its fine up to about 12X zoom, but once you get past this, the images become very shaky and virtually unusable. You would need a tripod to get zoom past 12X. This is annoying considering that this camcorder is advertised as a 25X optical zoom. Its basically useless past 12X.
All is all I definitely would recommend this camcorder for its ease of use and the fact that you no longer have to worry about tape.
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