The JVC Everio GZ-MG680 features a 120 GB hard disk drive and a 1/6-inch 800,000-pixel CCD image sensor. It also uses a Konica Minolta lens with a 40x dynamic zoom and 800x digital zoom. Dynamic zoom achieves up to 40x magnification by using nearly all of the CCD’s effective pixels without any picture quality degradation.
For sharing, the Everio MG680 makes it easy to watch videos on an iPod or iPhone by exporting videos to the user’s iTunes library with the new One Touch Export function provided by bundled software for Windows. This joins the One Touch Upload function for uploading to YouTube, for 2009 a feature available on all Everio camcorders, and One Touch DVD Creation function for easy archiving and sharing by disc, a long-time Everio feature.
To use any of the three functions, simply connect Everio to a PC using the supplied USB cable. Then, the user chooses one of three buttons on the Everio: UPLOAD, EXPORT, or DIRECT DVD. Pressing the button will launch the appropriate Windows PC application that comes bundled with Everio, and the user simply follows the simple on-screen prompts. With just a few mouse clicks the process of uploading to YouTube, exporting to iTunes, burning to disc or transferring to an external hard disk drive will be completed. For uploading to YouTube, the user can perform an in-camera edit of any length video to fit the 10-minute YouTube limit.
The new Everio MediaBrowser software supplied with all Everio models is a Windows application providing an easy-to-search calendar-type graphical interface for indexing and finding video files. Thumbnail images of recorded videos and stills are superimposed on the calendar so it’s easy to see when any scene was recorded. The Everio MediaBrowser also allows easy playback, simple cut editing, and “Decomotion” to spruce up recorded footage with animated graphics for upload to YouTube. It also supports Export to iTunes, Upload to YouTube, burning to disc or transferring to HDD.
Another new feature found on all Everio camcorders is Digest Playback, which offers an easy and entertaining way to check the content residing on Everio’s HDD or SD/SDHC card. The function automatically selects highlight scenes from among the recorded content using JVC’s proprietary algorithm and plays back what looks like a “coming attractions” trailer for a movie. Sixty minutes of footage is condensed into five minutes of highlight scenes.
Technical Details
- 120 GB HDD for up to 150 hours of recording.
- HD up-convert with HDMI for 1920×1080/60P output.
- 40x Dynamic Zoom with Konica Minolta lens.
- Laser-touch operation with sub-trigger and zoom; one-touch upload to YouTube.
- One-touch upload to YouTube.
Customer Feedback
Great camcorder. Compact, relatively lightweight and easy to operate. Searched the Web for a better deal, couldn’t find it. Amazon had the best price and and free delivery with Prime! Been using it for about a month or so… Vast improvement over our last one (Canon). No fuss or worrying about tapes or disks. Would highly recommend.
