JVC GZ-MG130 Camcorder Review

by John Neely
Published on May 4, 2007 12:00 PM

Intro Performance
Format
 Auto / Manual Controls
Still Features Handling and Use
Audio / Playback / Connectivity Other Features
Comparisons / Conclusion Specs and Ratings
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Compression (4.0)
The MG130 compresses video to the MPEG-2 format with dual-channel Dolby Digital audio on the HDD drive or an SD card. There are four recording quality settings that differ in variable data transfer rates. The premium setting, Ultra, has a Variable Bit Rate (VBR) of 8.5 Mbps, Fine transfers at 5.5 Mbps, Normal has a VBR of 4.2, and finally the lowest rung on the ladder, Eco, has a 1.5 Mbps VBR. While all JVC HDD camcorders top out at 8.5 Mbps, MiniDV has a fixed 25 Mbps data transfer rate in any quality setting. The MG130 is equipped with JVC’s new Gigabrid Engine image processor, which incorporates 6 digital noise reduction systems to reportedly improve the S/N ratio by roughly 3db over past models. Judging by the video, the system actually seems to work. The noise was low in decent lighting.

Video can be copied directly to a computer via a USB 2.0 connection, however, footage appears as .MOD files. You can manually change the file extension to .MPG to view the footage, but audio will not accompany the file.

Digital stills can be saved to a SD card or HDD drive with a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 in Fine and Standard mode.

Media (7.0)
This year, JVC tinkered with the hybrid design and added SD/SDHC card slots on all of their consumer Everio camcorders. The MG130 records video and stills to a 30GB HDD drive or a SD/SDHC card. The hard drive can hold up to 7 hours and 10 minutes of video footage in Ultra mode, 10 hours and 40 minutes in Fine mode, 14 hours and 10 minutes in Normal mode, and 37 hours and 30 minutes in Eco mode.

The HDD can serve as an external hard drive and store files for quick transfer when connected to a PC via the supplied high speed USB 2.0 cable. In addition, the HDD features a Floating Suspension system that dampens vibrations through polymer shock absorbers.

SD and SDHC cards are widely recognized and can be classified as high capacity flash media. These stamp-sized chips are highly portable and compress at the same rate as HDD and DVD camcorders.

Editing (5.0)
Non-linear editing programs for the MPEG-2 format are limited, but the MG130 comes supplied with Power Producer 3 NE and Power Director 5 NE Express. Power Producer 3 NE offers easy authoring of video clips to DVD in any order right from a USB connected camcorder. This program is highly user-friendly and allows for the simple creation of a DVD via transferring footage from the camcorder directly to a disc.

Power Director 5 NE Express provides you with a respectable array of non-linear editing features, enabling title creation, effects, and mixing stills with videos. You can also convert a variety of file formats including DV-AVI, Windows AVI, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, WMV, and RealVideo.







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