After having a hand in the design of JVC's new GY-HD100U professional camcorder, I was obviously wishing a lot from this camera. The camera is exciting because it represents a major leap forward in the so-called “pro-sumer” market – incorporating the revolutionary HDV video format, a truly professional Fujinon lens and real progressive 24 frames per second capability – and all priced under $US 7,000.

JVC intended to release the camera earlier and had quite a few working models at NAB this year, but they weren't going to let it to market until they felt it was right. So JVC released a few very beta versions to a select group of testers such as myself, to get feedback before finalizing the menus and firmware.

Speaking too soon?

Unfortunately, some of those testers starting spreading disparaging comments on the net – certainly there were a few problems, but JVC was clear that the internal workings of the camera had not been locked down and that this was a debugging process. And indeed the first look at the camera was not a fair representation as some critical updates were needed to deal with the camera's encoding/decoding circuits.

JVC admits also that in order to “keep the cost down” on the camera, they provided an HD lens for stock with the camera that is probably less than adequate for the camera's recording capabilities.

Although this bold and unprecedented appeal for feedback may have put JVC in a slightly compromised marketing position, I think when the HD100 is finally evaluated by the professional community, there won't be a naysayer with a leg to stand on. The bang for the buck simply cannot be denied…

On my second round of evaluations, JVC was kind enough to provide me with the more expensive and better quality Fujinon Th13x3.5 wide angle lens – which definitely boosted the resolution performance of the camera. So after some initial testing to determine the proper, detail, matrix and gamma I blew some footage up to film to finalize the settings – and went off to shoot a movie !

Let's Make a Movie !

Some friends who wanted me to DP a short film for them were willing to give this puppy a try – so off we went to Bowen Island, British Columbia Canada to shoot a film called “The Hitch Hiker” ! At the end of each day of our 2 day shoot, the Director, cast and crew watched dallies right out of the camera on my JVC DILA SX-21 digital projector – a fantastic 720P HD projection system that showed the 720P footage natively (no scaling). Talk about HD “Wow Factor”. Everyone was blown away by the detail, clarity, and color saturation.

It was fantastic to see how well the image held up – the resolution was everything you would expect from 720p – and definitely not what I expected from a highly compressed Mpeg-2 format. The 24P motion was smooth and film like, and surprisingly, the GY-HD100U delivered more color subtlety than its closest competition, the Sony Z1 (which I have also blown up to film).

It seems that all that overhead JVC gained by going with a slightly lower HD resolution matrix (720p as opposed to 1080p) was put back into dynamic range - because the first thing you notice is how much more realistic the skin tones appear. It also seems to have much better control over the highlights, which for a 25Mb/sec DV image is impressive.

JVC was also very smart to not bother with a “pull-down” recording method for their 24 frames per second mode. Instead of trying to make everything 29.97 frames / second friendly, JVC simply records the data to the MiniDV tape at 24 fps (yes, really). This means when you capture in to you NLE like Final Cut or AVID, you are capturing only the 24 frame / sec file you need – no more removing the pull-down!

Again – the reduction in pixels from 1080p to 720p, combined with reducing the frames recorded, results in the compression of the JVC being almost half that of the Sony – meaning they get back color and reduce compression artefacts.

Ergonomically excellent, with it's combination of side-mounted eyepiece viewfinder (as well as an LCD flip out screen), and features like adjustable shoulder-mount pad and well-placed earpiece cup for the audio monitor, the camera states clearly that it's just a really well-thought-out piece of gear. Professional camera people will notice that the layout of the physical switches like gain and white balance presets are in the same places they are used to.

With everyone else in the HDV game these days coming out with products that feel like toys for almost as much money, this was a refreshing step in the right direction. For starters, JVC was brave enough to commit to a professional lens-which means it's fully manual. Of course that also means interchangeable – so you are able to choose from a wide variety of lenses - especially when the adaptors, being made to convert the 1/3” format of the HD100 mount to the more commonly available 1/2” lenses, become available.

In short, when you look at this camera you don't say to yourself, “oh yeah, a monkey could operate this” – on the contrary – this camera says, “don't try this at home”. You will have to know what you are doing when you get a grip on that manual focus lens – but at least there is a way to control it and ensure accurate focus and exposure.

JVC is planning to release this camera, stock with a fairly good quality piece of glass on it; the Fujinon T16x5.5brm - for just under $US 7,000. Fujinon already has one other 1/3” lenses available; the higher-quality 13:1 zoom; the Th13x3.5. For anything other than HD for television – I would recommend going up to the better Th13x3.5 lens – especially if you think there is a chance it might be blown up to film projected digitally.

And of course there is always the option of the P+S Technik adaptor which allows for the use of 35mm prime and zoom lenses, but I have yet to test this with a film output application. My first thoughts are that the softness added by the adaptor will be detrimental – but we shall see as we test it !

As is the case with many new cameras, you need to watch for the really subtle stuff that can't always be seen on a small monitor. Detail enhancement is one of those tricky things, which you can set up on this camera any which way you want. You want to be careful not to go too far though – this can create noise in the blacks and that unwanted “ringing” effect around higher contrast edges. But at the same time – you need a certain amount of detail enhancement (or sharpening) otherwise the image appears flat and soft. (careful – you can actually turn all the detail OFF if you want – but you don't!).

You will have to find a balance, and sometimes that means you have to play with it. A lot will depend of course on the quality of the glass you have in front – so unfortunately, there isn't a stock answer for how to set things.

The settings you want to look at however are under the menu heading DETAIL. Generally, I have the V/H BALANCE set to NORMAL, and the H-FREQUENCY to HIGH, but I always set the V-FREQUENCY to LOW (V-FREQ is one of the biggest culprits of black noise…

Other Niceties…

JVC's commitment to the progress of the camera will continue through it's easily updatable design. It uses the standard SD (Secure Digital) chip for both storing menu settings as presets for interchanging with other cameras, as well as updating the firmware on the camera.

We are currently in development with JVC over a couple of different “Film Out” Gamma curves, which would produce a more suitable image for eventual film output allowing for maximized dynamic range in the initial image capture.

There are many manufacturers jumping on board to support the camera with accessories like MattBoxes (through CaVision and others), follow-focus and lens adaptors as mentioned.

For me and my long history with JVC as a DP tester and consultant, it also represented the first time that professionals from the industry were involved early in the design for this fairly specific “Pro-sume”r market. Manufactures use designing Prosumer products have tended to be from the Consumer department of these companies. JVC made this mistake with the worlds first HDV camera, the HD10U.

Finally it seems though, JVC has let their Pro Camera division have a crack at things, because in my book, the GY-HD100U has definitely set itself aside from the nebulous Pro-sumer limbo and firmly implanted itself into the world of professionals. Way to go JVC !

Click here to see HI-Res frames from "The Hitchhiker".