JVC refreshes Everio camcorders at CES

JVC on Wednesday gave its Everio camcorders a complete makeover for the new year. The HD line revolves around a 3-megapixel CMOS sensor that captures a native 1080p, 60 frames per second signal and includes a new image processing engine that records at up to the full 24Mbps bitrate of AVCHD and offers face detection while still consuming about 30 percent less power. The HM200 uses only SDHC cards for storage while the HD300 and HD320 models carry 60GB and 120GB hard drives for much more capacity. These last two also have both SDHC and microSDHC card slots to offload their content.

Each model aims to overcome the low zoom factors of most HD camcorders and include a new 20X optical zoom lens. The two hard drive models ship first, arriving in February for $700 and $800 respectively. The flash-only model appears in March for $580.

Standard definition models are split into different lines depending on their storage mediums. The MG630, MG670 and MG680 carry 60GB, 80GB and 120GB hard disks with SDHC and microSDHC as supplements. While all have 40X lenses, the two larger-capacity models can upscale video to 1080p and includes HDMI output (also present on the HD cameras) for previews of raw footage. The MS120 and MS130 use only flash but are functionally similar to the hard drive models. The MS130 improves on the base model by adding 16GB of internal flash.

MG models start shipping the soonest of all the Everios and will see the MG630 and MG670 appear in January at prices of $430 and $480, while the MG680 waits until February at a $550 price. The MS models surface in February for $300 and $350.

HD300/HD320

MG630/670/680