JVC GZ-MG505 Camcorder Review

Still Features (9.0)
The still features of the JVC GZ-MG505 are probably one of the biggest selling points on this camcorder. Not that we advocate still features as a reason to buy a camcorder – still cameras take the best stills, and video camcorders take the best video. That much has not changed, even though the GZ-MG505 does a better job than most at stills. Images are captured in the JPEG format to the HDD or SD card (not included), which loads from the bottom. There are two qualities (Fine and Standard) and five resolutions (640 x 480, 1280 x 960, 1600 x 1200, 2048 x 1536, and 2560 x 1920). The 1280 x 960 still is the largest that the camcorder can take without some camera trickery. All stills larger than that use pixel shifting, which involves moving the imager slightly (less than a pixel-space) after an initial capture to sample the object from a different location, then creating a composite image between the 2 or more captures to increase the amount of information (all of this happens in less than a second). In the case of three CCD camcorders, sometimes only one sensor is shifted, and sampled more frequently than the other two. The result is a sharper picture and wider dynamic range than the CCDs would be able to capture on their own.

Most of the manual controls that were available in video mode are also available in still mode. Some of the ranges have changed, though. AE (exposure compensation) has a range of -2.0 to +2.0 in 1/3EV stops. White balance is the same, as is the program AE modes. The Aperture Priority range decreases to F1.9 to F5.6, and Shutter Priority from 1/2 to 1/500 of a second (decreased even further to 1/2 through 1/250 when using the flash). The zoom decreases to 8x in still mode.

The flash (right) and SD card slot (left).

There is a flash located to the right of the lens. It can be adjusted via the Flash/Info button in the LCD cavity. It can be set to automatic, red-eye reduction, force-on, flash with slow shutter, and off. There is a continuous shooting option, which captures in intervals of about 0.5 seconds, as well as a bracketing option, which takes three stills in succession, one in auto exposure, then one at -0.3EV and one at +0.3EV. This is useful when you want to hedge your bets and have a few options later.

Playback of stills includes a number of options such as slideshows or grouping stills into folders and then naming them. Of course, you can do all this more quickly on a computer, but it’s nice to have options. There is also a histogram option in still playback. A histogram is a graphical representation of brightness levels in an image. It’s useful to gauge whether you have too much information in the picture that is blowing out, or if it’s too dark. Of course, all this is a lot more useful if you have a live histogram while you’re shooting, instead of after the fact. The GZ-MG505 also supports PictBridge, which allows you connect to a printer without a computer intermediary.

The histogram during still playback

One enticing feature on the JVC GZ-MG505 is the ability to manually set the ISO in still mode. ISO is the level of sensitivity – in low light you want the camcorder to pick up all available light. Of course, with an increased sensitivity comes an increase in noise. The noise reduction features on the camcorder can only do so much. The ISO can be set to auto, 100, 200, and 400. ISO control is not something that you see on camcorders very often. Last year’s JVC GZ-MC500 had it, and this is the only JVC this year to include it.

In addition, no other camcorder we talk about in this review has this level of still features, combining lots of controls and large resolutions. JVC is clearly marking this as a hybrid camcorder. In a market glutted with supposed “hybrids” that do little more than snap off a few ugly stills, this is an actual competitor, if not the leader.

Still Resolution (6.5)
The JVC GZ-MG505 was tested for the resolution of its stills by shooting a standard ISO 12233 resolution chart and running those stills through Imatest imaging software. In total, the resolution of a 2560 x 1920 still measured 654267.0. This score does not quite match up to expectations, and registers closer to what we saw on the VDR-D300, but not nearly as well as the upper-tier Sonys. So why all the hype about 5MP stills? Well, first of all, 5MP is the theoretical upper limit, so you’ll have to knock a significant percentage off right away. Next, JVC doesn’t go into a whole lot of explanation as to how their pixel shifting works. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as saying that a camcorder has three chips, so just multiply by three and you have your resolution. There is a whole slew of processing involved. In our tests, we found that the 2560 x 1920 stills did not look to have a higher resolution than the 1600 x 1200 stills. As you’ll see below, the stills look very good, but maybe 5 full megapixels of measurable information is a bit of marketing spin.

Still Performance (9.5)
The JVC GZ-MG505 produces large stills, larger than you’ll normally find on a camcorder. And like the video, the color performance is strong. Of course, video and still images require a different color space, meaning that they process colors differently. As this is a camcorder, you should expect to see better looking video than stills. That is the case with nearly every camcorder we review.

On rare occasions, however, the general quality of a camcorder’s still performance wows us. This is such a camcorder. The GZ-MG505 produced exceptionally crisp stills with color performance far better than we’re used to seeing. Of course, it has some problems. The green portion of the spectrum is poorly differentiated, and tends to blur into the yellows. When we checked the channel levels, we saw that the green channel was underperforming. Perhaps, this is a byproduct of the pixel shifting. We’re not sure. But we’re not complaining too much.

The noise levels are low, though the larger the stills, the more apparent the noise becomes. For instance, a 1600 x 1200 still looked to have very little noise. The 2560 x 1920 stills, on the other hand, looked to have the same amount of noise, but it more apparent – in other words, it looked to simply be making the noise larger. Coupled with the fact that the resolution did not seem to increase between 1600 x 1200 and 2560 x 1920, the pixel shifting process does not look too different from a simple interpolation process. That’s not too say that the camcorder is not using pixel shifting, just that this is not the best pixel shifting we’ve seen.

The color performance was better than last year’s JVC GZ-MC500, which we’d instantly named the best hybrid to date (back in July 2005 I believe the term we used was “jaw-dropping”). There is no doubt that the GZ-MG505 tops that in nearly every regard: the picture is brighter, the colors are more accurate, and there’s less noise. The MC500 had a drabber pallet. The fine detail this year is also better.

The GZ-MG77, is also drab, and seems to illustrate clearly the difference between 1-chip and 3-chip performance. Most of the sharpness is there, but the color performance is severely lacking when you hold it up against the GZ-MG505. There is also more noise, even though both camcorders have 3D Noise Reduction.

The Sony DCR-SR100 also had exceptionally sharp stills, but could not match the color performance of the GZ-MG505. In fact, there was hardly any color to speak of – the color had been leeched away.

The Panasonic VDR-D300 had better color performance than the other challengers here, but again, it was not close to the JVC GZ-MG505. There was also more noise in the image, a sad byproduct of all Panasonics this year.

The JVC GZ-MG505 offers some image quality controls, most importantly the ISO settings of 100, 200, 400, and auto. ISO is similar to gain control in video; it corresponds to the degree of sensitivity. Higher sensitivity allows for more detailed information, but also increases the amount of noise in the image. The auto setting seems to do a pretty good job, but manual controls are always a welcome addition to any camcorder. Below, you can see the results of ISO 100 and 200 at 3000 lux, and ISO 200 and 400 at 15 lux.

At 3000 lux, the ISO 100 setting seemed to correspond to the auto mode. When we boosted it up to ISO 200, it didn’t seem to add anything to image but noise, and even then, it was a negligible amount.

This crop shows quite clearly the noise increase between ISO 200 and 400 at 15 lux.

The 15 lux shots at 200 ISO image showed a manageable amount of noise, considering what a low light that is. The 400 ISO setting, however, had a lot more noise. It does not add much to the brightness of the image, so the noise