JVC GR-DVL300U Digital Camcorder

I have this Camera from the year 2000 and work perfecly. Im very happy whith this. JVC is a great product.

I purchased my JVC DSL300U new back in 2000. I bought the extended warranty for an extra chunk of change. I couldn't be more unhappy with the product and so I am leaving these commments. It is an expensive camera and it if would have worked some of the time over the last 5 years I would have been happy with it. The largest problem is that it flashes the message "HEAD CLEANING REQUIRED" "USE CLEANING CASSETTE". When this happens it does not work. Cleaning does not help. I have had it into the repair shop every time I tried to use it and it would work on average of 10 minutes to 30 minutes after I got it back. Often the authorized repair shop would say they could find nothing wrong or to try JVC tapes. I have only used JVC tapes in the camera. There is also the message E04 that tells you to remove and reinstall the battery. Lets be honest, removing and reinstalling the battery does absolutely nothing to fix the problem. I have taken very good care of it and it has NEVER been dropped. When I have actually thought is was recording and later looked at what I recorded birthday / holiday, I found out that it did not work correctly. Wide horizontal red and lines and no sound is not my idea of a good recording. Maybe you think I got a lemon. I did a web search on google with the following: JVC "head cleaning required" . I found out that all of the JVC mini DV cameras have the same problem and I am not alone. Do the search yourself before you buy any JVC video camera. Consumer reports November 2004, page 29 rates JVC mini DV as the worst in repairs and serious problems. It also rates JVC VHS-C as the worst for repairs and serious problems. You have been warned. Good luck!

I've had this camcorder for about 3 years now and it's been a nice addition. The battery life is fair (roughly an hour), and the picture quality is above average. I say that because it doesn't pick up all the details on pictures that you'd get from say just a digital camera. I like how the flashlight in the front actually does a good job and doesn't light things to a minimal effect. Dark rooms light the heck up once you switch that sucker on. The digital screen shows everything perfectly (for its size that is) and you won't have any trouble making sure you're getting everything or not. The sound is pretty good as well. Even when talking close to the speaker on it, I rarely got fuzz or any other weird effects added to voices. There's also a snapshot feature which isn't excactly innovative, but nice if you'd rather take a quick picture instead of taping something for a few seconds. Keep in mind that when you tape something, even after you see the status change to "REC", a second or two might get cut out. With the snapshot though, you don't get the full image because of a white border around the image. So be careful there.

What's keeping it from 5 stars are three things. One of which might be obvious and I just wasn't aware of it. The cable it came with isn't for use with my eMac. So I don't know if Mac users are just screwed here or what. But it'd be nice if I could find out where to get a cord for it if I can in fact use it with my computer. It was just fine with my PC when I still had it, and there were no problems. Another thing being the lack of a headphone jack. The last con about this product is the same thing everyone here keeps mentioning- the "head clean" message. Why this appears, I don't know. Everything can be taping just fine, and then all of a sudden, the message flashes on the screen. If this does happen, then you can forget about what it is you just taped, because it deletes it for some reason. I've lost a ton of priceless moments thanks to this. And sometimes when I put in a tape, it just won't do anything. Like when I pop in an older one to view something and go to the play mode and hit one of the buttons (play, rewind, fast forward, etc.), nothing happens. It'll just stay on the blue screen until I take the tape out over and over. It's very annoying. But this could be due to the fact that I've used the camera so much. I never got this problem the first 2 years I had it. And yes, I used those cleaning tapes, which worked at first. But now, nothing's helping out much. It's a game of chance half of the time. And now that I think about it, the buttons are delicate. Right now, the stop button is very fidgety, and I can't tell if I activated a button or not unless I watch the screeen. This is most likely due to the number of times the camera's been dropped. Yes, I see that saying that right there may result in the head cleaning messages, but everyone else on here seems to get that message regardless of if their camera(s) has taken a few bumps or not.

In the end though, I liked this camera up until it gave me the stupid messages to clean it. Maybe it's just a production error with the first wave of cameras, maybe not. It's great for beginners though, and a good start to building a nice photo gallery. You can see the quality of some of the pictures at http://photos.yahoo.com/mujaheddin_nagi. Mostly being of myself and things in my home. As you can see, the quality is pretty good, but it could be a little sharper. I look forward to getting another JVC digital camcorder in the future. They're great products.

This is my first camcorder, and I'm having a ball with it! It's so easy to use, and I love the snapshot feature that allows me to take a snapshot image in the midst of recording, and it even throws in a little shutter click sound for effect! Maybe I'm easy to please, as I have no prior camcorder experience, and therefore no preconceived notions as to performance. But the picture looks great, and the sound is decent. I'm basically just using this for family purposes, and it serves me well!

Picture quality is good but the image stabilization is very bad. I purchased this camera a week ago and decided to return it and get Canon Optura Pi, since Optura Pi has the optical stabilizer.