This is a great camera for the price. It is convenient, and the quality is good. The guy who claims his iPhone 5 takes better video is crazy. I have taken video with my iPhone 5 and it isn't even close... Anyway, it has great features and is easy to use with excellent video quality at a great price. There are better, but you will have to pay quite a bit more.
The first thing I noticed was the odd ergonomics. I've owned 4 previous video recorders, including the Sony HDR-CX380 I bought to replace the JVC (from Costco at a $100 discount) and I've NEVER had any problems operating the record and zoom controls. I simply could not operate either control without shaking/jerking the camera. Using the controls on the touch screen was a little better, but doing so still added an unacceptable amount of shake, and was awkward, too, especially when using the touch screen zoom control.
It is possible that the shake issues were exacerbated by the really quite poor stabilization system. It was definitely substandard when compared to the optical stabilization systems on two previous MiniDV Panasonic cameras and even a 17 year old Nikon/Sony 8mm video camera. Shake was VERY noticeable even in wide-angle shots, something that JVC claims their Advanced Image Stabilization (A.I.S.) system is designed to address.
The image stabilization issues may have added to the really quite poor video quality. Video images looked very flat and artificial, with exaggerated, over-sharpened edges and blurry details. In fact, in the highest quality 1080 video, images of a hillside dotted with oak trees and tall green and golden grasses, the edges of the hills and trees showed significant over-sharpening and, at higher optical zoom levels, an unacceptable amount of chromatic aberration, while the grasses were blurred to a flat, solid mass of color with absolutely no individual details. BTW. I NEVER use digital zoom so I can't even imagine what a mess THAT would make of the sub-par video quality. Playback, too, was choppy on both a 1080P Sony Bravia TV and a quad-core 2.4gHz computer with a true 1080P 2ms monitor. Stepping was noticeable in both panning and zooming and appeared to occur at exactly the same frequency (about 2 times per second) in both.
Finally, a comment on lens quality... Granted, my three previous video cameras were equipped with Nikon and, on the Panasonic, Leica lenses, so one would expect the glass quality to be better than that on the JVC. However, JVC's (and other manufacturers) pursuit of ever higher zoom ratios ruins image quality at ALL focal lengths, introducing unacceptable chromatic aberration, the red/blue fringing surrounding sharp edges or high contrast images, that ranges from noticeable at short FLs to ridiculous at mid to long focal lengths. I've seen the same thing, to a lesser extent, on point and shoot digital cameras, even those in the $200-300 dollar range, although no manufacturer that had any concern about image quality would ever dare to put a 40x zoom on a mid-level point and shoot digital camera at least I haven't seen it...YET!
So, why give this video camera 2 stars, instead of 1? Well, if the user knows only cell phone and low resolution streaming video, then this IS a step up (albeit a small one). NOTE: After posting this review and looking at the JVC videos again, the quality is SO much worse than those taken with my year old Samsung Galaxy S3 mobile phone that the JVC deserves less than 1 star!
It seems that the "digital revolution" in music and photography has significantly lowered expectations of many consumers. Most (but fortunately not all) folks who know only cell phone camera video or still images and have only heard over-boosted digital music with small in-ear headphones really don't know what high-quality images and audio are. Unfortunately, it seems like many manufacturers are chasing impressive specs and features (wow, it has WiFi and a cell phone remote control app!) with no real concern for quality, knowing that many consumers will never know the difference. One can only hope that rapidly improving technology will reverse this "lowest common denominator" trend in the near future.I bought this camera because of the cool built-in Wifi features. The camera arrived fast as promised but I was very disappointed when I started using it. First it is made of cheap plastic, you feel you're going to break it every time you touch it. Worst of all is the video quality, my iPhone 5 delivers way better video quality than this. JVC was busy adding tons of features and forgot to pay any attention to the video quality.
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