Jvc Gr-d770u

Just purchased this digital video camera....JVC GR-D770U. Can anyone tell me if I have to use the mini cassets? I have a SD card for the unit but cant find info on how to record directly to the card....if you can do that. Advice is greatly appreciated...

If the camera has a place to put a mini dv tape or a mini dvd disc then the sd card slot will most likely be only for recording still pictures, that is unless the camera uses some sort of low quality movie mode when switched to card mode. either way i would be using the tapes as they will give you much higher quality recording and far longer recording time.

You'll be shooting on a MiniDV cassette. Pretty nice camera you got there. As Skyman noted, the SD card is for shooting still pictures.

I borrowed this JVC GR-D770u camera today and read the manual but can't figure out how to transfer my video to my PC. I have a mini tape in the camera and have recorded to that. Now I want to transfer the video to my PC. I have the USB cable and plugged it into the PC and the camera but nothing happens. Can't figure out how to get the transfer started. Can anyone help me? I'm trying this camera out to see if I want to buy one. Thanks, Kathy

you need to use the firewire connection to transfer video, the usb connection is just for still pictures

Sorry, but what is the firewire connection? I have several cables she gave me including one to hook up to the VCR. Can you clarify for me? I appreciate your help....thanks,
Kathy

firewire, i-link and ieee 1394 are all names for the same connection, it is a fast connection standard that is ideal for transfering video to computers. most digital video cameras come with a small (4 pin) firewire port. This looks like like a little square with a slight v cut out of the top. your computer will also need a firewire port, if it doesn't already have one. these can be bought for less than $20 and will come with a cable to connect the camera to the computer. the other type of firewire port is a larger 6 pin connection.it looks a lot likea usb port (although marginally bigger with a small > protruding out of one of the long ends) you can connect a 6pin port to a 4 pin device with the right cable with no problems. When you connect your camera to your computer through the firewire, you will be able to load up your editing program (movie maker comes free with a pc if you don't have another program, or I-movie comes free with a mac) incidentally if you have a mac it already has a firewire port. Let us know how you go.

Thanks
Simon

I have a question. I want to save my movie as better quality as possible. Can someone explain me why when I playback the movie in the video camera I can see it in the display so clear, crisp, and "alive", but when I transfer it to the PC Is not the same as I see it in the camera LCD display?
I use a Firewire cable with golden connector. My PC has 3GB memory and 2.6GHrz CPU, I think the transfer should be a good quality "copy" of the tape.

Thank you.

The transfer from firewire to the computer looses no quality whatsoever, so the reason your video doesn't look so good will either be that your computer isn't fast enough to play it back properly or the program you are using to play it back can't keep up with the large files of the high quality video.

Thank you very much for the reply. I don't think my computer is slow (AMDx64 dual core 2.6MHz with 3GB memory, a 9600GT 256MB Graphic Card...) What I mean, If I can play very demanding video games in this PC I would be able to play a video captured by this camera. Regarding software, I think I transfer the video using Windows Media, do you have any other good free video editing software that make a better job? On the other hand, now I'm thinking that I can see the video in the camera display so nice, sharp, crisp..because the display is small and is better resolution that to playing in a bigger screen. The smaller I make the window where is playing the better. What do you think, What should I do?
Thank you again.
I would like, like all of us, keep those memories with the best quality.

windows media is notoriously buggy for playing back full resolution video but to make sure try capturing it in windows movie maker (free) and use the save to my computer option to convert it to a wmv file that windows media player will like better. There is a world of difference between drawing a video game and playing back a high resolution video. most game render engines throw up "pollygons" or shapes of colours to draw the image, this dramatically reduces the load on the computer as it doesn't have to calculate the exact colour for every pixel on the screen. a full resolution video on the other hand has the colour information for every pixel for every frame (standard definition starts at about 640x480 pixels x 16bits of colour information x52 frames a second that equals 255590400 bits of information (around 250mb) the computer has to process every second just to display the video let alone the audio. now if one part of the equation in the computer slows it down be it the motherboard, the hard drive speed, the size of you cache, the amount of ram available, the gpu and cpu processing rates or the bus speed then your playback will get garbled, this is especially true with inefficient playback apps.

Sorry, What I meant is I captured with Microsoft Movie Maker, but I played back in Quicktime.
I don't know...as I say you can tell the difference when reviewing the movie directly in the camera display vs seen it in the monitor (I have a DELL flat screen monitor with DVI and analog output). I don't think this JVC has better chipset that my computer, but again, maybe the sharp image is due to the size of the display screen vs a PC monitor. :idea:
Thanks again

hmm I was confused :idea: I thought your video wasn't playing back smoothly. but reading your posts more carefully I suspect that your problem is that the video is dull looking on your computer screen. can you export the video to a dvd and play it on a dvd player? if so does this fix the problem? I had this issue on my old computer and I suspect that calibrating the monitor would have fixed it, in the end since I was exporting everything at the time to dvd and I didn't need to colour grade so I was able to ignore the issue. There are capture settings with your firewire card that might help but they might also throw out the colour of your exported video, try calibrating your monitor first and then try the capture settings. Sorry to send you off on the wrong track. It can be hard to work out where a problem lies when you aren't able to see it for yourself :o

I totally understand you. I have sometimes friends and family asking me to fix some computer problems they have over the phone and if you are not on site it is sometimes difficult to figure it out :)
Well, I guess thats the word "dull" (English is not my primary language). I will try to burn the movie into my DVD and they I'll play it back on the TV to see how it looks.
Thank you for the tip. I that doesn't work what do you mean by calibrating... I guess calibrating the monitor you mean to play with the monitor setting, but I don't have any way (that I know) to calibrate the firewire port setting...
:thumbsup:
Thank you again for the help

Calibrating a monitor refers to assigning a colour profile to the monitor and ensuring that what is displayed matches how it should look based on the appropriate colour profile. in terms of photography it is a generic term to describe how "true or accurate to life" colours and contrast are displayed on the screen and usually goes hand in hand with printer calibration so that what is displayed on the screen is what was intended to be reprisented by the camera and matches what appears when a photo is printed. You can calibrate your monitor visually - by adjusting it till it looks correct and there are programs that let you do this (the old versions of photoshop came with a gamma tool for instance where you had to match colours in boxes) more recently there are devices such as a photocal spider, which plugs into a usb port and hangs over your screen. The software fires predetermined colours etc at the "spider" which analyses the light output and adjusts your screens settings accordingly. In theory you should also calibrate your firewire port but the higher end video cameras record more colour information (3ccd cameras) and higher end editing applications have a vast array of colour management views and tools such as a vectorscope and waveform monitor that allow for much more control of colour. Add to that manual white balancing of your camera and good exposure and you really shouldn't need to calibrate your input device. - I had a poke around and I can't find the settings for it, but I suspect they only appear when you add a device that has a colour profile, at least on a windows machine it should sit under control panel - colour management.

I just borrowed this JVC GR-D770U camcorder to do a project. The person didn't have the manual any longer and is not accessible. I had to buy a new battery which i just got. Every thing is in, seem to be recording but when i try to play back, i can't see where that would be other than the obvious. I turn on the dial to play, open the screen side viewer and nothing is going on. Give me just a start so i can figure the rest.
thanks

This might help you get started!

http://resources.jvc.com/Resources/0...53-001B-EN.pdf

I suspect that your problem is that the video is dull looking on your computer screen. can you export the video to a dvd and play it on a dvd player?????