JVC Shows Off New High Definition Everio GZ-HD3

Image courtesy of Akihabara News

July 12, 2007 – JVC may have sprung a new high definition Everio on the market, the GZ-HD3. Purportedly the little brother of the GZ-HD7, the GZ-HD3 is stated to have a 60GB internal hard disk drive (HDD), along with the ability to record onto SDHC memory cards. It will not offer the full 1920 x 1080 HD – only 1440 x 1080 in an MPEG-2 TS file type.

 

The JVC GZ-HD3 appears to be much smaller than its predecessor, with a design and size that falls somewhere in between the GZ-HD7 and the Panasonic HDC-SD1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99). The photos also show a version of the camcorder with a translucent shell, indicating that the camcorder may still be in the show-and-tell design phase. No information is available at this time concerning price, release date, or in which markets the camcorder may sell.

 

According to the source, the GZ-HD3 records video to the HDD or to a SDHC memory cards. Hybrid recording has become a trend lately. Hitachi has had success in certain markets with their DVD/HDD camcorders. Panasonic offers two models that record to HDD or memory card. Just yesterday, Samsung announced the SC-DX10, which offers DVD and internal flash memory recording. The article states that a 4GB SDHC card would offer 25 minutes of recording time, and 5 hours to the 60GB HDD.

 

The JVC GZ-HD7 has met with wavering sales, despite a number of great features. Competitors such as Canon’s HV20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $903), Panasonic’s HDC-SD1, and Sony’s plethora of HD camcorders, including the HDR-HC7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1128.56), HDR-SR7 (Specs, Recent News, $1399), HDR-UX7, and HDR-CX7 (Specs, Recent News, $1199) have found more success by positioning themselves as a better value or easier to use. The CamcorderInfo.com shootout between the GZ-HD7 and several of these camcorders indicated that while the HD7 provided better handling and manual controls, the 1920 x 1080 file types were difficult to work with and the overall video quality was less than expected. Limiting the GZ-HD3 to HDV file formats may help to alleviate editing concerns, but JVC may have a hard time convincing consumers that their camcorder can deliver on quality equal to or better than Canon and Sony.

Terry Shea, General Manager, Corporate Communications for JVC Company of America, confirmed that GZ-HD3 was shown to a small number of press members in Japan, but that the camcorder did not receive an official announcement, and that no further information was available at this time.