Yesterday we received a demo the new JVC GY-HD100U 24P HDV (DV) camcorder. 

This was an impressive little piece of gear.  The clear design idea was for the use of this camera in ENG applications and education.  The camera can be configured with a full studio setup. 

The camera has interchangeable lenses.  This is the key feature of this camera.  We screened the images from this camera through a high quality high def direct view monitor.  The image from the camera, even in the standard institutional lighting of a hallway in Demille Hall at Chapman University was impressive.  The big problem came when we screened material that had been recorded on the on-board HDV recorder.  This recorder records with MPEG2 compression.  The reduction in quality of this recording from what the camera itself can produce is considerable.  The recorder can only preserve 19 Mb/sec of data.  Standard definition DV is 25Mb/sec.  The image uncompressed from the 1/3" chip of the camera is already a reduced 1280X720 progressive image but was impressive.  The recorder is a real problem.

The other drawback with this unit is that the images can not yet be edited in 24P.  There's no facility for editing the footage from this camera with either Final Cut Pro or Avid.  With the quality of this little camera I'm sure this will happen.  The price of the camera, as we saw it was in the vicinity of $7,000.  Amazing