Sony and JVC Camcorder Comparison

In working with the two HD cameras, I found that in general the picture from the JVC camcorder was sharper. That is only a subjective observation, though. There are other, more obvious reasons that I prefer the JVC. The mere fact that it uses an SD card is a huge advantage to me. It means that you don't have to deal with the peculiarities of tape. You don't have to worry about timecode breaks, which means that you can review your footage any time you want. This has come in handy quite a bit. You also don't have to capture the footage when you're done shooting, you simply copy the files.

Simply using solid-state media has advantages over using mechanically operated media. For example, an SD card can be written and rewritten a virtually unlimited number of times. A tape can be rewritten as well, but it can create timecode breaks and, in my experience, it can often create errors in the way it records the image. That is, you might see strange colored squares all around the screen at various times. Another advantage of the JVC camcorder is its ability to shoot in progressive scan. The Sony camcorder will only record in 1080i, whereas the JVC will record up to 1080p. From what I've read and what I've seen with my own eyes, there is pretty much no debate over the fact that 1080p produces a better image than 1080i.

On the other hand, there is one advantage that the Sony camcorder has over the JVC that is readily apparent to me, and that is its easier access to manual controls. The Sony camcorder has a ring both for focus and for zoom, whereas the JVC has only one ring that must be switched in order to control either focus or zoom. Because the Sony is slightly larger it also has more space for buttons, which means that some operations that require multiple button-pushes on the JVC can be done with only one button on the Sony. But these advantages are rather small considering that they really only mean that, in the case of the JVC, you need to plan out ahead of time what you need to do. The advantages of flash-based media far outweigh this slight disadvantage in my mind.