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JVC GY-HM100U Review

Aug 6, 2009 12:00 PM, By D.W. Leitner

JVC reimagines the small handheld HD camcorder.

Recently, a filmmaker friend of mine confided to me on the eve of her trip to Baghdad that her 5lb. Sony HVR-Z1U would be too heavy for all-day use in the wilting temperatures of Mesopotamia, so she was also taking along a tiny consumer HDV camcorder. I knew she would favor it. I’ve had this size/weight discussion of late with many filmmaker friends, and many, to my surprise, agree with her.

Surprise, because hailing from an era of “dockable” three-tube Betacams, which added 17lbs. of pressure to my spine (Digital Betacams still tipped the scale at 15lbs. two decades later), I find today’s Handycam-type camcorders to be featherweight and liberating. I guess it all depends on what you get used to.

It may also be a matter of body build. I’m not stocky, but I’m solid and can easily hold a Sony Z1 in front of me for hours (done it many times). I’ve noticed in discussion with many camerapersons over the years that it’s hard to predict according to a person’s size and build whether they’ll possess the upper-body strength and lower-back endurance to shoot comfortably for hours. That’s why, I think, some people take delight in handheldcamcorders while others insist on shoulder-mount designs.

If JVC’s new GY-HM100U had been available a few months earlier, I think my friend would have swooned over it. It has a solid, full-size handle with two XLR inputs, a comfortable, full-size color view¬finder (not the dinky sort found on most miniature camcorders), a zoom rocker switch that’s sensitive enough to produce slow controlled zooms, and perfect ergonomic balance. Oh yes, and fully loaded—battery, recording medium, mic—it weighs less than 3lbs. (I was shocked how small and light the cardboard shipping box was when the review unit arrived.)

Many will come to treasure the HM100’s defining feature: a removable handle. I did a shoot in northern Pakistan several years ago with a Sony HVR-A1U, another bantam HD camcorder the same weight as the HM100, which, like a portable assault weapon, could also be broken down into smaller parts. By unscrewing and disengaging the A1’s XLR audio adapter—which did not incorporate a handle, let alone a full-size one—and by removing the lens hood, I instantly converted the A1 into a tiny amateur camcorder.

This can be a lifesaver in a dangerous corner of the world. (I think my Baghdad-bound friend would concur. She reports that Sony Z1s are used for news in that part of the world and are considered fully professional. In other words, targets.) In safer realms, it can spell the difference between stealing a shot or coming away empty-handed.

Perhaps it’s unusual to get this far in a new camcorder review without a single mention of the usual tech specs, excluding size and weight, but I’ve taken this path because for the people who are going to flock to this sub-$4,000 camcorder—and flock they will; it’s going to be a hit—tech specs will be secondary to the considerations mentioned above. You only have to pick up a JVC HM100 to appreciate its petite dimensions, smart design, and solid build quality.

JVC’s innovation doesn’t end with body design. The HM100 introduces three advanced recording techniques:

1. Capture to Sony’s XDCAM EX MPEG-2 format, either at 1440x1080, 25Mbps constant bit rate (HDV equivalent) or 1920x1080, 35Mbps variable bit rate, both of which can be contained (“wrapped”) in either an MPEG-4 file format (.mp4) as Sony does or ...
2. as an alternative, contained in Apple’s QuickTime format (.mov) for direct drag-and-drop playability in Final Cut Pro—no need for a “clip browser” or other intermediary plug-ins. A camcorder first! (AJA Video Systems’ imminent Ki Pro compact solid-state deck converts uncompressed HD to Apple ProRes 422 and also directly produces QuickTime files. A trend?)
3. Lastly, file recording to cheap, tiny SDHC Class 6 cards, which Sony PMW-EX1 and PMW-EX3 camcorders accomplish only with an adapter card. (Panasonic’s upcoming AG-HMC40, which is about the same size as the HM100, captures AVCHD to SDHC cards. Definitely a trend.)

Further, the HM100 offers choices of 60i/30p and 24p as well as 50i/25p—definitely a “worldcam”—in both HD flavors, 1080 and 720. (720p formats are 19Mbps MPEG-2.) Of course, 720p/60 yields smooth slo-mo when conformed to 23.98fps in Final Cut Pro using Cinema Tools.

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