JVC 1080p Camcorder w/ 40x Optical Zoom

We have had this little thing for about a year now and have no complaints. The kids love to make silly little “movies” with it and the camera man if often the 6 year old and he can operate it no sweat. It has taken a little beating by them and been used non-stop with not a single issue. It is fun to plug it into our TV with an HDMI and watch the movies they have created. Oh, and someone asked about an external microphone, it works great and we can hear everything the kids say even from way across the room crystal clear. Also works great in regular home lighting, they shoot in our basement with just thr overhead fluorescents and there are no issues visually.

Does anyone know if i would be able to live-stream with this camera?

Does anyone know if you can flip the viewfinder around so you can see it from the front of the camera?

with the battery lifes shortcomings, can anyone link to a battery for this model? im curious as to what the cost for an extra battery would be and the external charger that was mentioned previously by member “doulos61”. how is this ‘external charger’ different from the charger thats included with the camera?
thanks all for any clarification.

I have this exact camera, paid over $200 for it last summer so this is a great price - it takes really good videos… the time lapse feature is really cool… I used it to make this video:

Time Lapse Video - Active Beer Fermentation

Yes, in addition to flipping the view finder, you can then close it against the camera again, so that it is nice and compact and you can look at the camera from the side to see what is being recorded in the video.

I was working from memory re: the mono-mike comment. You’re right, I dug mine out of the car console, and it has L&R, microphones. I’m tempted to get a couple more of these.

With a two year old camera, I personally don’t find the battery life to be a problem at all, but there are replacement batteries with much higher mAh ratings than the factory 730 mAh. I hope this URL reference works. Here is an Amazon page with battery choices:
Batteries

does it have a remote to start/stop playback?

How does it perform in low-light settings?

cant tell you how much i appreciate the feedback! gonna have a look at that link you sent shortly. actually what i was referring to though when i commented about the battery life was the amount of time that it will hold a charge for each use. going from what i saw here: http://www.meanpc.com/2012/11/jvc-gz-hm40bus-everio-hd-camcorder.html
any thoughts on the external charger that ive seen mentioned?

Am I just missing something or does this come with any memory at all?

I’m also wondering if there is some simple way to use this in a live-streaming situation.

No on board memory. You must provide an sd card 4 or better for best performance from the videos I have seen before deciding to buy.

I just popped for this woot deal. Going to see how much I hate only having 40 minutes of battery (there’s not a whole lot I can think of that I really want more than 40 minutes of…). Might pick up another 40 minute battery ($21 AMZN)and/or an additional external charger (~$10 AMZN) so that I can keep a spare ready to go. The charger I looked at has a DC car cig lighter adapter as well, so that would be handy when there’s no AC source. Still, after all is said and done, the whole shebang will only run about $150 for a decent camera and larger sd card.

No remote, low light performance is better than some cameras costing a lot more . . . it isn’t by any means great, but it’ll do for most stuff the average user will shoot indoors with only a couple of table lamps or a ceiling light on in a living room or dining room, etc.

Does it take still pics? And with date/time on it

I have this from a previous woot for the price it takes great pictures… Bought because its cheap and has time delay. Use it on my farm great to see 40 minutes of work( battery life and all) compressed into less than 1 minute. If it crashes or falls in the mud I care but not that much. This one is better than the 30 version.

When you connect the camera via USB the only thing it will show is the camera’s internal memory (which cannot be used to store files) where the software is stored and the SD card . . . it doesn’t show up via USB as a video device. I’m not aware of there being a way to perform the function via USB, although there may be a work-around on the Internet using the drivers from a different model. A lot of times the camera is “clipped” by software but will actually do a lot more than advertised. It does have real time A/V out so if you had a capture card that accepted RCA input or HDMI input it will certainly work that way . . . by the way, HDMI out requires a type A to C HDMI cable (one connecting end is smaller than the other - if you search online for a GoPro 2 cable, you’ll be able to pick up one for around $3-4 online - you will want to avoid purchasing a GoPro 3 compatible HDMI cable, it simply won’t work).

The only way I know of to take a still picture is in succession with the time lapse feature, which will imbed a time/date stamp if you have it set correctly. However, that is going to be output from the camera as a “movie”, not as a succession of still image files (.JPG or similar). I am not aware of a way to use the camera to capture a still photo - but again, there may be an undocumented way to accomplish this online. I have not installed the software contained on the camera so I do not know if there is way to extract a single file as an image with that software after recording a file using the time lapse feature.

If you turn the screen to the lowest setting and make other adjustments to the camera in the settings that do not impact recording quality, you can squeeze almost a full hour out of the included battery. The battery is very sensitive IME to temperature (more so than others) and it doesn’t last nearly as long when it is below 50F.