Everio GZ-MC500
A Personal Review by Derek Yeo

 

The worlds smallest 3 CCD camcorder combined with a hefty price tag is the Everio GZ-MC500 joining the lineup of JVC’s line of new pocket hybrid camcorders. Slowly but surely, it seems we are moving into the tapeless realm and this camcorder records its videos on 4GB Microdrives and also SD storage media.
A sexy, stylish looking camera, its almost a certainty you would fall in love with its looks and the awesome technical specifications that plague this camera.
This camera shares the same body design as the GZ-MC200, which preceded it. A rotating handle that allows the camcorder for ease of use in hand held situations but however does not go far enough unlike SONY's 3 CCD HC1000.

 

Zoom
The camera is also equipped with a 10 times optical zoom lens and controlled by a tiny zoom toggle which in my opinion perform pretty well for a camera of its size. It also has a digital capability where you can select and option of 40X or 200 X.

 

Focusing
The front of the camcorder has a lens hood as well as a focus ring of which unfortunately in my opinion is very difficult to use anyway unless the lens hood is remove from the lens. This addition by JVC is indeed a clever move to include manual focusing ring which i personally feel beats any kind of joystick or touch screen operation. This camera however has quite a few problem in its auto focusing capabilities in the higher zoom levels of which the manual focusing must then come to use.

 

Mode Button
By pressing the mode button situated where the dial is the camera will cycle through the video mode, still mode and lastly the voice recording mode.

 

Shooting Modes
The camera allows you via a dial situated on the left side of the camera to toggle between various shooting modes including fully automatic, manual, shutter priority, aperture priority and also program AE modes such as night, portrait, sports, and snow/sun. Please be aware that the manual selection does not mean that you have any control over shutter or aperture control like other cameras in this mode. You would have to be in shutter priority and aperture priority modes to do this.
Trash & Info Button
Situated on the top part of the camcorder, you will find the info and trash button. This button will allows you to access the mode either to view the information of recorded media and also erasing stills and videos.

 

Video Performance
Behold, if you are sold on specifications, the Everio GZ-MC500 has a 3 chip 1/4 inch size CCD boasting 1.33 MP each. The camcorder is also capable of shooting 5MP stills using the JVC pixel shifting technology on a SD storage card. While the specifications blow practically any video junky away, it does not perform as well as one would expect.
I had the privilege in putting this camcorder through a series of test and the result as far a video quality was concerned were far more disappointing than I had expected. A whole lot of video grain and noise was evidently present in the recorded video.
You could also notice the considerable jerkiness in the recorded footage and this especially so when there was plenty of motion in the recorded footage or the nature of the content. At the first go, I assumed it was because I had attempted to play the footage directly from the micro drive but then even after transferring the entire file to the hard disk, the same problem was evident.
I also discovered that the AGC (Auto Gain Control) feature on the camera was turn on as default and realized the awful reality that when turned off, the camera practically loses its ability to shoot good video even in the simplest of lighting conditions. So, if you are looking for an answer on low light performance, I can only say that there is none as far as this camcorder is concerned.
The camera practically requires the AGC to be turned on at all times and here is the best part, please do not expect the quality of the video to improve on turning this feature off in good lighting condition cos you will be end up even more disappointed noticing any difference.

 

Still Performance
The JVC GZ-MC500 is capable of shooting very good stills and indeed the only camcorder produces decently good stills despite the fact the camera is really a video camcorder. The 5 mega pixel with JVC’s pixel shifting allows images up to 2560 x 1920 and also an array of settings from standard to fine mode and also a possibility of recording images either on the SD media or micro drive via a selection within the menu controls.

 

Conclusion
My recommendation however for anyone looking to purchase a camcorder would be to buy a real camcorder and a digital still camera instead of opting for the MC-500. The performance as mentioned earlier as far as video resolution is concerned can be sort of a disappointment and indeed to when you have to fork out over S$2,000 for camcorder with a deficiency in its video recording ability requires some very careful consideration.