Audio
The audio side of the camera worked very well. Two XLR connectors at the rear of the camera and one in the front gave me all the versatility I needed for field recording in a two-channel system. The XLRs in the rear are adjustable from mike level to line and have switchable +48volts for phantom power separately available. On the side panel there are two sets of switches for auto/manual gain and your choice of assigning the front XLR or the rear XLRs to either or both channels. There is the dual channel meter as well along with two master gain controls. We were using a Shure mixer for almost all our setups, so my audio configuration was very basic. Audio sent me 1K tone at 0 dB and I set my audio levels to -10dB on my meters, line level, using the rear XLRs I set the levels at the camera for -10dB as the metering seems to be very "peaky", i.e., very sensitive to peak readings and telling me the audio is "over" when we were only hitting -30dB at the Shure with the limiter on and under normal two person dialogue situations.

With this setting, the only time I heard digital distortion was twice, the first time 50 feet away from a Citation II private jet as it taxied by and the second time when the boom person was too close to an actor who came out of a room screaming at the top of his lungs. In addition to the controls and functions I've mentioned there is also a warning tone level adjustment for the earphone jack and the built in speaker as well as the actual volume control for monitoring both tracks. By the way, the earphone jack is a mini jack at the rear of the unit. I felt its placement was perfect. The cable never got in the way for my headphones. My only complaint here is that the jack is a mono jack. You can listen to left channel, right channel or mixed, but only out of one ear. I don't understand why the camera operator can't be given a choice for a stereo feed of both channels to both ears or a mono feed of either or both channels to one or both ears. With the ear bud earphones getting better everyday, using both ears for monitoring is becoming a norm rather than an exception.

Hint: always run 5 seconds of bars at the end of any really good take. Two reasons: 1: So you won't record over a scene and 2: Makes it easy to see the great takes while fast forwarding during a logging session!

The Deck
The record deck half of the camcorder performed almost perfectly. The tape transport is very responsive to all operations but two. When loading a new tape, it was sometimes necessary to turn the camera off then back on and eject the new tape then reload it to get the time code to reset back to zero. On the other side of the same coin, there were times when, after being off for a time, the deck wouldn't find its position (normally backspaced) or time code, so I'd have to hit the review button on the lens. Then the transport would back up five or so seconds and roll to the end of the last scene and re-cue itself with the proper time code. This to me was another minor issue, as I'd rather have to do this than find myself recording over the ending of the previous scene.

The deck section of the camera has its own menu settings. My advice, don't go there. The only setting you might want to change is the time code setting. Since most DV gear is set for Drop frame (DF), you may want to check and see what your deck is set for. Ours came from the dealer set for NDF. Don't know why, but since the camera came in an opened box, I must assume the dealer people were playing around...So word to the wise, check all menu settings for the default settings before you use the camera for the first time. I checked all menu settings each day when I took the camera out of the case and always before a scene where I might have been away from the camera for a length of time.

Drop out and head clogs have been a major player in the DV forums for months now. We were prepared for our first head clog indication when it happened 4 tape head hours into the shoot. The warning indicators in the viewfinder, headphones and LCD panel all told me the problem was there. It took more time to open the new head-cleaning cassette than it did to clean the heads for 5 seconds, which solved the problem. JVC has acknowledged a sensor problem that is being corrected. Since our first encounter with the head clog, we haven't seen it since, and we have 22 one-hour tapes run through this camera for the movie. You can guess how many actual head and drum hours we've put on to accommodate 22 one hour long tapes. Hint: Think about how many takes there are in an average scene...and the waiting for makeup just before the roll, or waiting for boom, just before the roll...in other words, lots of time with the tape on the heads!

Next: Ergonomics and Performance

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Durability, Down Side, Bottom Line