Hands-on and unboxing: JVC Everio HD40 camcorder

We got a chance to peek JVC's latest line of Everio camcorders in a controlled environment a few weeks back, but we finally managed to snag a retail HD40 (that's the flagship model in this series) and take it off to our own special corner. Of course, we tackled the first things first: unboxing and hands-on. Early impressions are that the unit is surprisingly light, though it's on the bulky side. Granted, there is 120GB of storage in there, so it may be a fair trade off for some. We're letting the battery charge up and plan to shoot some video with it over the weekend; we'll be writing up a full review here shortly. 'Til then, enjoy the gallery below (complete with comparison shots with the impressive Samsung SC-HMX20C).

Hands-on: JVC Everio HD40 camcorder

[Nippero Posted Jul 4th 2008 9:04PM]

lol, flaship model eh? ;p

anyway, its.. shiny o_o
it might just be me... but some of the labeling seems odd. I could see the Hard Disc thing on the box confusing people... and whys the battery pack labeled data battery? o_O

[sik59rt Posted Jul 5th 2008 7:09PM]

data battery is a feature where you can see on a bar graph how much battery life you have left.
you can also see how much HDD space is left too via a pie chart

[E71 Posted Jul 5th 2008 1:00AM]

Not really that much of a big deal but I sure hope it uses MKV as the container for the AVCHD video, will save me conversion time.

How likely is it EngadgetHD folks are gonna put up some nice video sample for us all to see?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 5th 2008 9:50AM]

We have every intention of uploading a few sample clips, as we did with Samsung's SC-HMX20C.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 5th 2008 2:02PM]

It'll probably use .mts files for the AVCHD and .ts files for the MPEG-2 (it can record to either).
I don't think any mainstream brands use .mkv as a container, do they? I think it's more for incorporating multiple audio and subtitle tracks (which a camcorder doesn't do).

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 5th 2008 3:44AM]

This might be off topic, but i'm not pulling a gizmodo and start talking about horny stuff, but what camera is used to take the pictures of the product?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 5th 2008 9:52AM]

It's a Canon SD850 IS, which I wholeheartedly love.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 5th 2008 11:42AM]

I realize Engadget may not be set up for this request, but since you guys come into contact with a lot of nice consumer/pro-sumer HD gear, I was hoping the crew could put together a comparison grid "roundup" every couple months or so with a summary of features and usability comments for the units you've gotten in recently.

Maybe not at the level of Tom's Hardware, but something of a buying guide for those of us in the market for that particular item.

Other sites, like CNET, tend to have some stale ratings and reviews for products and a fresh perspective would be good to read.

Just a suggestion....

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 5th 2008 4:57PM]

I'd really appreciate a description of what programs people are using to edit the video from hard drive cameras. Unlike MiniDV (which captured raw, uncompressed video) there seems to be many competing formats, all of which seem to be lossy. iMovie never had a compatibility list of known working cameras until hard drive cameras came out.

[Dignan17 Posted Jul 5th 2008 11:50PM]

Just wanted to ask: am I the only one having trouble going through the gallery? I'm clicking on the right-hand arrow, and every few times I end up staring at a blank white page. No 404 error, no nothing, just blank...

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 6th 2008 8:26AM]

Why this so cheap? It that real? please check..
Improvements compared to the previous generation? http://astore.amazon.com/buy_cheap-20/detail/B001284CA8/002-8934402-0084049

Complete with comparison shots with the impressive Samsung's SC-HMX20C http://astore.amazon.com/buy_cheap-20/detail/B0018KTCIM/002-8934402-0084049