JVC Everio GZMG27 20GB HDD Digital Media Camcorder with 32x Optical Zoom (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I recently purchsased the JVC Everio GZMG27 after much research and thought about which platform to get....hard drive vs. mini DV tapes vs. mini DVD discs. I tested the cam yesterday and it was easy to use, very user friendly (don't really need to read the manual to get it working) and took a nice video. Overall a very good purchase over the Sony which generally costs about $100 more. However, what I do not like about the camera and will be the reason why I am going to return it and purchase the DVD mini disc format is the time it takes to create a DVD. Last night I copied the test video from the Cam to my hard drive and I discovered the following. The files are some weird MOI type which cannot be opened using any standard video software. You must use the disc that comes with the camcorder. The software does allow you to convert to AVI which would then have to be converted to DVD format. This of course is in real time, so if your video is 2 hours, you must play back the video for 2 hours and then wait for the computer to first convert to AVI. After that I could rip it to disc in about 45 more minutes. Although there is an option of directly ripping to DVD, I do not like this option since I would like to have a back up (in DVD file format) on my harddrive along with a copy of the DVD.With the mini DVD camcorders, it is so easy to make a copy and keep a copy on your computer's harddrive for future editing/copies. Much less time consuming for sure. The drawback is of course that the discs are only good for about 30 minutes of footage, but that is fine with me.Hope this saves you some time.

Great camera- if you never intend to shoot a video inside. The lowlight problems mentioned in some other reviews are worse than I imagined. I applied the workaround discussed above, tried out hundreds of combinations of my own, and followed JVC customer support instructions, all to no avail. Any video shot inside, or otherwise with lowlight, is grainy, blurry, shadowy and the colors are false. I tried returning the camera to amazon/J&R Music and to JVC, but none of the above would take it back being past the 30 day return policy. I am incredibly disappointed in this camera. When put up next to a 5 year old sony vhs camcorder (a budget model at that) I realized the low light quality is even worse than my old one! This was a huge waste of money - don't buy it.

The Everio GZMG27 HDD Camcorder is a wonderful camcorder with lots of handy features at a value price. Although the battery that comes with the camcorder has a limited life, I didn't feel that this was a huge drawback since I always like to buy a spare anyway. The 20 GB capacity seems to be more than adequate and it is easy to transfer to other storage media. The zoom feature is powerful enough to bring out the flaws on the face of a Hollywood star and the Automatic shooting mode allows you to start taking good videos straight from the box.

Since I really only have a few small gripes, I'll list them first! The indoor quality isn't great-- even with the 'fix' listed below-- the colors are mostly washed out so the picture looks nearly black and white, and depending on how much light is available when you adjust the white balance, it can almost take on a sepia tone appearance. Also, in low-light situations, the camera seems to 'search' for something to focus on, causing the subject to blur in and out over and over. Other than that, I've been very happy with my purchase. I did a lot of online searching thru models here at Amazon, and read tons of reviews for many different cameras, and this one seemed to have the MOST positive feedback.The pros:Excellent outdoor and daytime (well lit) indoor shooting.Amazingly smooth zoom! Even at 32X the detail is amazing!Very easy to use out of the box, easy to understand menu!Excellent design, great attention to detail!Very small and light!Love the 20 Gigabyte HDD memory!Very easy PC interface, quick transfer of files.Cyberlink's Products are very user-friendly.Packed with features I haven't even discovered yet!Needless to say, I really am not disappointed with my purchase. Anyone who thinks they should be able to get feature-film quality from a small, compact camcorder for less than $500 is pretty naive.*EDIT- I have upgraded the bundled Cyberlink products to the full versions and find them to be capable of creating great professional-looking films in 1080p HD without being as cumbersome and difficult to use as Adobe Premiere. It also costs about half the price. A review of them is here ...[...]

Having a hard drive is a huge improvement over the one hour Mini DV tapes. But the execution of this innovation by JVC forces one into compromises as compared to more conventional camcorders. This particular camera was purchased for a small town church to broadcast live to an LCD projection system as well as record church services. The recording part is fine because it makes it unnecessary to buy tapes for each service. But the live broadcast of the video signal is disappointing. The camera flip out screen has icons and indicators to inform the user of recording time remaining and other settings. Unfortunately all of this information is also shown on the S-Video out connection and the other video out connection. It cannot be turned off. Even though one can turn it off from the menu system, it automatically reappears as soon as the record button is pushed. That means all these indicators and icons are on the projected image throught the LCD projector from the S-video output. JVC service has been unable to assist and it seems that their US technicians do not have English as their native language. If you playback the image from one of the outputs, you also have to go into the menu system to turn these indicators off. It is hard for me to understand why these indicators and icons would ever be present on a video out feed. No other camera I have ever used allowed these indicators and icons on their video output. Steer clear of the Everio series of cameras if you plan to use the camera for live view feeds like we are using at our church.

I have no idea how to find what memory card goes to it and it delays when you move it.