JVC's New 3-CCD Hard Disk Camcorder Due This Month
March 04, 2005
Orlando, FL - JVC's new GZ-MC500 Digital Media Camera, the newest member of its Everio line of hard disk camcorders, will be available this month, the manufacturer ananounced.
The three-CCD GZ-MC500 records 60 minutes of DVD-quality video or thousands of photo-quality stills to a Microdrive removable hard disk.
The use of three CCDs combined with advanced pixel shift technology allows the GZ-MC500 to deliver 5 megapixel-class digital stills with a maximum size of 2560 x 1920 pixels, and a broadened dynamic range when recording still or moving images.
The GZ-MC500 dedicates a 1.33 (1.23 effective) megapixel CCD to each color – red, green and blue. JVC’s advanced prism optics and filterless 3-CCD pixel shift technology quadruple the pixel count to record five megapixel-class stills. Simply put, the pixel shift technique, used also in JVC professional cameras, captures double the 1,228,800 pixel information in both the horizontal and vertical directions, creating a real full color image pixel count multiplied by four for stills. (Everio uses 691,200 effective pixels for each RGB video color.) The broader dynamic range delivers videos with bright realistic colors and photo-quality digital stills up to 2560 x 1920 pixels for beautiful 8” x 10” or A4 prints. JVC optics using three dimension angle mounting technology assures high precision prism/CCD registration with accuracy on the order of one micron.
The GZ-MC500 also features a high resolution 10x optical zoom (8x for stills) JVC lens and shoots native 4 x 3 or 16 x 9 (squeeze) video.
In the video camera mode the GZ-MC500 shoots up to 60 minutes of high quality MPEG-2 video clips on the supplied removable 4GB Microdrive card. A choice of four recording modes lets users choose between more shooting time or higher quality, depending on their needs. The highest quality Ultra mode records at a fixed data rate of 8.88 Mbps including Dolby Digital audio (8.5 Mbps video plus 384kbps Dolby Digital Audio) — comparable to the DVD (average 4 Mbps video/9.8 Mbps maximum) data rate — for essentially DVD-level quality in the same video and audio format as a movie DVD. As a result, Everio images can be enjoyed on a large-screen display, including plasma, LCD and rear projection TVs, without the quality loss suffered by other formats when presented on a large display. A convenient multi-connector AV/S-Video cable is included for direct connection.
The camera stores images and video on the included 4GB Microdrive card. The same CF slot can accommodate user-supplied CompactFlash Type 2 cards. There is a separate SD memory card slot. Microdrive is a hard disk drive that’s the same size as a CompactFlash Type 2 card, but with much greater capacity. It can be removed, just like a CompactFlash or SD memory card, and data loaded into a PC using an optional card adapter up to 4-5x real time speed depending on the PC and adapter.
The CyberLink DVD Solution bundled with the GZ-MC500 comprises three applications that make it easy to make and watch full-length DVD movies. A standard 4.7GB single-layer DVD-R/RW disc holds over one hour of an Ultra mode movie, and over 90 minutes of a Fine mode movie.
PowerProducer offers easy saving and authoring of video clips in any order to DVD, even directly from a USB-connected camera, so users can share original DVDs with anybody who owns a DVD player. The software makes it easy to locate and transfer video files residing on the camera’s Microdrive. Saving to DVD requires only a PC with 256 MB RAM, 700MHz or above Pentium III, USB 2.0 terminal and a DVD burner.
PowerDirector Express offers feature-rich non-linear editing so users can flex their creative muscle with titles and even mix stills with videos.
PowerDirector Express also converts movies to a variety of file formats to send via the Web or e-mail. Supported formats include DV-AVI, Windows-AVI, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, as well as Windows Media Video and RealVideo that can be streamed over the Internet.
PowerDVD conveniently plays back video clips and DVDs with Dolby Digital audio.
Note: Applications not compatible with Macintosh.
The JVC Everio GZ-MC500 will be available in March at a nationally advertised value of $1,799.95.
For more information, visit
www.jvc.com
# # #
For a listing of all the Industry News Stories...
Click Here |
