JVC Everio GZ-MG255 review

Size matters, so both big and small camcorders have their own places in the world. A huge expensive camcorder will produce amazing footage, but it's just not the best choice for every occasion.

If you're shooting home movies and family gatherings, you might not want to fiddle around with a giant, professional video camera and its stacks of MiniDV tapes. You probably want something compact and convenient, like the JVC Everio GZ-MG255 hard drive camcorder, available for £340.

Design
Like all JVC Everio camcorders, the MG255 cuts a very small profile. It measures less than three inches thick and wide and weighs 400g with its battery. This relatively lightweight, readily palmable design makes the camcorder easy to carry around. It's too big to comfortably slip into most jacket pockets, but it should fit into almost any bag. This small size comes at a price, though; like every JVC Everio except the high-definition GZ-HD7, the MG255 lacks a viewfinder, forcing you to use the 69mm (2.7-inch) LCD.

A tiny joystick mounted on the flip-out LCD screen lets you navigate the MG255's various menus. A function button sits conveniently just below the joystick, offering access to the most commonly used settings. For more complicated controls, you have to reach over to the camcorder's body to hit the Menu button.

Four additional controls sit next to the Menu button, including playback, automatic/manual mode toggle and Direct DVD and Direct Backup buttons. Direct DVD and Direct Backup let you burn your movies to a DVD recorder or back them up to a computer's hard drive. Like all Everio camcorders, the MG255 is compatible with JVC's Share Station external DVD burners.

Features
With a 30GB hard drive, the MG255 can shoot up to 37.5 hours of MPEG-2 video. Of course, you'll only get those 37-plus hours if you shoot at the camcorder's lowest setting. If you shoot at the higher-quality Fine or Ultra-fine modes, you can expect to fit between 7-10 hours of footage.

Given recent trends in hard-drive-based camcorders, we would've expected to see a more efficient, high-quality MPEG-4 video format, such as H.264. MPEG-4 video codecs tend to fit more video into a smaller amount of data and likely would have extended the MG255's video life. However, MPEG-2 is simple enough to work with and still offers plenty of recording time. Besides the hard drive, the MG255 can accept SDHC memory cards. However, you can only record still photos to the cards, and since you can do that with the hard drive as well, the SD card slot isn't very useful.

A 2-megapixel sensor drives the MG255, capturing both 720x480-pixel widescreen video and 1,600x1,200-pixel still images. The MG255's 2-megapixel still photos certainly won't replace larger, sharper pictures from a dedicated digital camera, but they can make passable 152x102mm (6x4-inch) prints.