I been playing with it all day. it is so cool. it really is a good camera. I take back everything I said about it based on rumors.

The new Sony is cool too but has a crappy lux rating.


http://www.paskday.com/jvc/jvc1.JPG


I sold keyboards on ebay and saved money to buy this for the last 4 months.

and yes.. i grew a beard too. btw.. the spots and bumps on my face is on the mirror and not my skin. I used the camera to take a picture of it by adjusting the bathroom vanity mirror :D

Nice :) Glad you like it!

Do you have an editing solution for it yet? Let's see some footage!

Just to clarify:

from http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL027075&pathId=29&page=2
"35 Lux minimum illumination"

from http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=HDRFX1&Dept=dcc_DICamcorders&CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HighDefinitionVideo
"Minimum Illumination: 3 lux"

The reviews and my personal experience reflect this to be true as well.

The sony didnt impress me much. a few people there liked the JVC over it.


now for the bad news. The firewire just wont work. I have read tons of threads on google of people having the same damn problem. I called tech and they told me to return it and get a new one. Im going to go do that tonight.

if the new one doesnt work then I have to return that one and get my money back.

I really like this camera. 35 lux seems wrong. I know thats what they say but it picks up image better then my panasonic 3 chip that claims to be a 3 lux.

Anyways, I dont want to return my camera. I really like it but JVC should have put more into the driver problem that everyone seems to be having.

I dont see how a new camera will help. The tech guy says he solves everyones problem but mine. He says I should have a yellow exclamation mark in my device manager somewhere. But I dont. and I tried it on 3 computers. none work.

And I payed 27 hundred for this. The sony is a thousand more. I cant afford that.

im pissed off.

PS .. Sorry I got the lux thing backwards. the JVC seems to pick up light better.

King Goldfish: have you installed microsofts Service Pack 2? People, including myself, have had ENORMOUS trouble with it. It really screws up firewire. After I installed it I could only capture about every other frame from my camera. Soon after that I was no longer even able to capture at all. This sounds precisely like the problem you are having - especially if you don't have a yellow questionmark.

What are you using for editing?

Service Pack 2 is eeeevil.

King Goldfish: have you installed microsofts Service Pack 2? People, including myself, have had ENORMOUS trouble with it. It really screws up firewire. After I installed it I could only capture about every other frame from my camera. Soon after that I was no longer even able to capture at all. This sounds precisely like the problem you are having - especially if you don't have a yellow questionmark.

What are you using for editing?


Nooooo! Its a viris. Windows is a freaken viris. I wish I could just dump it all for Redhat but i dont want to run a windows emulator for my special FX software.

It was the camera. I took it back to frys and got a new one. it was still a pain. I was lucky to find a site that taught me how to do it.

but it works beautifully now. just that its new technology so most editors wont render at 1280x720.



I finally got the yellow exclimation mark (spellcheck) and removed it.

this is what you do.. first install the MPEG edit studio CD (all 4 installs).. turned off my computer. plug the new 1394 I bought with the exchange (iogear) 6to4

then I set the camera setting to sw and not auto as it states.

then you have to switch DV to mpeg mode.

turn the camera to play mode and plug in both ends of 1394 IEEE to the pc and camcorder.

turn back on computer

then when it prompts you of new device, you click the bottom box to chose it yourself (i have the exact setup i will post as a footnote) and then you chose JVC from the list and JVC tape device or whatever its called.

do not run it in DV mode. it wont work.

then you use their HD Capture software. read the help.. its kind of tricky at first.

it makes a m2t format file. its really lame. I looked everywhere on how to convert it, then all I did was change the format name to mpg and dragged it into vegas and it worked fined. just change the name.

but you have to own the mpeg codec for vegas. Im glad I got it. it didnt work before I intalled it (obviouslly).

then comes the tricky part. you drag the mpeg file into the editor and when you render it seems to force you to render no higher then 800 lines max. but if you use uncompress and type in 1280 then hit enter it goes back to the render button.. you then hit "custom" again, go back into video and change the second (vertical box) and change it to 720 and hit "enter" and it pops you back out of the window back to the save render window.

name it and render it and it will render at 1280x720. I know its a pain in the ass but it worked. only thing is you cant view uncompressed video because its choppy. so now you have to find another way to render it. Im thinking 3D Studio Max will render it in mpeg in mov format for DVD.

alot of software hopping but it will work. I heard Pinnacle renders HDTV. I might invest in the new version.

I'm actually fairly surprised there's not more available for FX and such on a linux platform.. I'll have to look into that.

As for rendering goes, check out videohelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com) You might find something cheaper (or better yet, FREE) to do the job. :D

You might want to check this out:
YMPEG (http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=YMPEG)

But I've heard that TMPEGEnc is much higher quality..

Here's a decent thread (http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=245313) discussing MPEG2 compression

that seems to make no sense. ccds are light sensitive devices. a 3 ccd camera would most defintly be better in low light than a 1 chip camera.

That would of course depend on the sensitivity of the ccd, as well as its size.

Well.. i have a 3CCD device but the chip set on it are small.

I like my little panasonic but it doesnt apear to have a better light sensitivity as this one does.

the grain factor on the panasonic 120 mini dv I own even gets grainy faster in low light then the one chip.

oh well.. I could bring it back and get a sony. Im happy with it. its very clear. maybe in the future when HD cams come down in price, there will be a mid range consummer version that will be far superior then the first generation prosumer brand HDR-FX1.

I want to know whats up with the guy who uses the guts of the digital camera and is hyrbiding it with the 16mm. hows that coming along? Would love to get a book on how to do that and or maybe a kit.

Doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult.. in theory anyway. Though it seems easier and probably cheaper in the long run to just get a "real" one. ;)

just for kicks. I will set up both the PV-GS120 3CCD on a tripod next to the 1 chip JVC HD1 and sinc them in vegas for a side by side view (split) of same frame settings and let you decide. if vegas cant do it, then 3D Studio max can with uncompress then take that render and mpeg it in vegas. i might lose a bit of quality but I will do everything at 100%. then Ill make a 5 second test scene of the jVC in 1280x720 in true light to let you see how grainy it is or isnt.

I like the camera. I do want to make it a bit grainy and add FX to get it to be more film like.

Doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult.. in theory anyway. Though it seems easier and probably cheaper in the long run to just get a "real" one. ;)


I wish I was rich :(

i mean how much film and how good of a quality film camera could I buy for 3 grand?

the film alone would cost that much for a beginer like me in just the first month or so learning how to film in different light settings.

Wow.. I displayed my test shots from the JVC using cinipak at 100% on a large plazma and I could see bleeding and other problems with color that didnt show up much on the monitor.

I am using Unlead MPEG for AVI and it is so much cleaner and renders about 3 times as fast.

any input?

I'm not entirely sure what you are saying..

Are you saying that AVI is bleeding a lot? Or MPEG? What are you editing with? Vegas? What is your workflow? Do you edit the native MPEG format or do you uncompress and work on a lossless version?

ok.. sorry, I thought "Color Bleeding" meant when you get a weird aura effect where different shades of color blotch up in an area. I wish I could post a picture to illustrate what i mean.

With cinipak it was causing a weird blotching effect on all things red in the video.

At 100 percent quality setting.

where as Unlead MPEG codec (for avi) was perfect as far as I could judge perfect. a person who works with a higher resolution of 1900x Im sure would disagree, but I have been able to notice alot more suttle details then I was able to several months back.

now, even though it says avi in the format name, Im guess when you chose a mpeg codec you really have a mpg or mpeg file with just avi as the format name.

but the reason I save as avi is because with vegas, I can only change the rendering settings to 1280x720 on avi files only. and it takes some manipulation to do so. mpeg wont even let me go into custom settings. it is set for good. both mpeg1 and 2.


sorry.. thats the best I know for now.

When you say "native" you mean mpg format? i dont understand that term. sorry, I havnt attended film school yet. I plan on it maybe in a few years. explain this term.. i hear it all the time.

Sorry to be unclear Mr. Goldfish. I'm good at confusing myself even!

native is just used to refer to the format that is recorded to tape. In this case, MPEG2. With DV it would be DV etc.

Your definition is a perfectly fine use of the term bleeding. I wasn't trying to correct you! Just wasn't entirely sure what was happening and what was causing it to happen.

you refer to cinepak - can you provide more information on this format? Does JVC provide software that has this format? Is it available through Vegas alone? I'm just not familiar with the CODEC so I can't offer much insight yet into why it looks bad.

Just a suggestion for editing though: once you capture the footage to your hard drive you may want to consider opening the file in Vegas and then immediately exporting the file to an uncompressed AVI format. This will take up quite a bit more room on your hard drive but it is a good idea if you need to do a lot in editing. Otherwise everytime you hit "render" in vegas (even just for a preview of your work assuming Vegas' doesn't show effects real time) you will loose image quality because you will be, essentially, recompressing the file again throwing away data. With a format that has no compression no data is lost.

Not sure if that made sense. Try hitting me upside the head if it didn't and I'll draw up some graphics to help illustrate this better :)

Sorry to be unclear Mr. Goldfish. I'm good at confusing myself even!

native is just used to refer to the format that is recorded to tape. In this case, MPEG2. With DV it would be DV etc.

Your definition is a perfectly fine use of the term bleeding. I wasn't trying to correct you! Just wasn't entirely sure what was happening and what was causing it to happen.

you refer to cinepak - can you provide more information on this format? Does JVC provide software that has this format? Is it available through Vegas alone? I'm just not familiar with the CODEC so I can't offer much insight yet into why it looks bad.

Just a suggestion for editing though: once you capture the footage to your hard drive you may want to consider opening the file in Vegas and then immediately exporting the file to an uncompressed AVI format. This will take up quite a bit more room on your hard drive but it is a good idea if you need to do a lot in editing. Otherwise everytime you hit "render" in vegas (even just for a preview of your work assuming Vegas' doesn't show effects real time) you will loose image quality because you will be, essentially, recompressing the file again throwing away data. With a format that has no compression no data is lost.

Not sure if that made sense. Try hitting me upside the head if it didn't and I'll draw up some graphics to help illustrate this better :)


No it makes sense.. Its exactly what I try to avoid. but for now, Im forced into this several layered way of doing things. And as I was saying. I try and make things uncompressed when possible.


the Unlead works much greater then cinapak.

I am still working on compression so it gives a 100 percent quality.

when setting it up, you chose to find it yourself and chose from the list Sound video game controll (or something like that from the list) then JVC will be on the list.


thats just a note for me :D

Very nice looking camera Goldfish. ;) thanks for sharing it with us. You're going to have some fun with that. :P Lucky you...lol

thanks, like was mentioned before there is some noise to it. I didnt see it at the store but when I put it on a larger HD widescreen it came in.

its still nice. Its weird how HD looks so different from regular DV.

One of the nice features about HD is the fact that it pushes the scene out and so it looks like you're seeing things from the natural eye. a more wide debth of things (A cookie for the obvious :) ) where as when I switch it to DV it brings everything up to close. so I dont need to get a wide angle lens for it.

there is a kit at Frys electronic that makes has a magnetic optical lens that widens the view like an HD cam but it doesnt fit the Panasonic GV-PS series that I own. I have the 120 model. but it didnt even fit the 400 model they had in the store. there is no metal for the thing to attach too. only the JVC and the Sony worked.

I really love the colors of the 120 but this has a nice feel to it as well.

I get alot of weird feedback from friends when I say I bought it. they're like "2700 bucks? thats way to much money for a camera." But cameras have come way down in price since the 1980s while the dollar value has dropped to about a third of what it was 15-20 years ago. so in a sense, a 300 dollar camera todays money value would have been like 100-150 bucks back then. but cameras back then were over 800 bucks. I paid 1200 bucks for a video Toshiba camera in 1989. I dont think 2700 bucks is alot for a camera as good as this. there is a huge difference in the quality. and if people want to see their family all grainy 20 years from now then go buy a 300 dollar camera. Plus my kids love to play with the 120. Its small and light weight and i feel safer having them use that then the older Panasonic DV cam thats heavy and bulky and cost me 1000 bucks 5 years ago.


anyways, I have a purpose for all three cameras. the 3 color 120 model I use when I go hiking or vacation with the family. the older Panasonic I use at night because it has a night vision filter and has a really good picture as well. the HD will be used mostly for my hobby once I build my greenscreen in the garage.

Im gonna post pictures of it on my website when its done. My wife is helping too. its nice because I can composite my family into all kinds of scenes like them standing in front of halfdome of Yosemite that was too far away to get their picture in when we visited last year. I cropped a photo of the dome and blew it up and put them in front of a green screen and it look like they were right their when I adjusted the lights on them.