This is the first prosumer camera that I ever bought and it is still a very good sturdy and dependable camcorder. In 2007 the CCD failed and I soon learned that there was a general failure reported in the US for the majority of the Sony camcorders (and JVC used the same CCD chip). In the US, these CCDs were replaced free of charge and in fairness to the company in Cork that did the repairs, they only charged for time.
As this is a single CCD unit, the colour depth is not as good as either the Canon XM2 or XL2 but it is still far superior to a standard consumer model. I have dome a number of shoots using this camera and the Canon XM2 and it was impossible when looking at the final production to say which scenes were shot with which camera.
The one major drawback that it has is the way that it handles 16:9 shooting. The footage is stored in an MPEG format which means that it cannot be easily handled by in line editors like Adobe Premier. You have to use the JVC software and then generate a standard AVI for import into Premier. If shooting in 4:3, then it is a great camera.
Posted in Camcorder | Tags: GR-PD1, GRPD1, JVC, JVC GR-PD1, oliver leamy, videographer
