jvc

Each year the National Association of Broadcasters holds its trade show in Las Vegas and manufacturers trot out their latest professional camcorders. Here are the highlights from this year's show, so far...

Canon XL H1S/XL H1A: Canon checks in with an update to its HDV XL H1. The two new models each include three 1.67-megapixel 16:9 1/3-inch CCD sensors, 20x optical zoom lenses with Canon's SuperRange optical image stabilization, and more granular controls. For instance, the iris is now adjustable in 1/16-stop increments instead of 1/4-stop, and gain, white balance, selective-color noise … Read more

You remember those fold-up Sony headphones that you used to take with you to the gym? Well, JVC's added a new "high-end" version of that type of headphone to its Bi-Metal line of in-ear canal headphones. JVC's HA-SX500 will be out this month with a list price of $79.99. Oh, and it's iPhone-compatible.

Here's the news release if you want the details:

"The new JVC HA-SX500 achieves high quality sound by employing JVC's original Bi-Metal structure and a new large 16mm neodymium driver unit, offering greater power handling and sensitivity.

JVC's Bi-Metal structure is designed to enhance performance across the frequency range by housing the drive unit in a steel base wrapped in a high-specific-gravity brass ring to eliminate vibration and energy loss. The HA-SX500 also offers a vast reduction in friction noise. The headphones feature flexible rubber joints, reducing friction noise while increasing comfort, and use OFC (oxygen-free copper) to minimize transmission loss in the 0.8 meter friction noise reduction cord.

The lightweight HA-SX500 headphones are designed to provide a comfortable and secure fit while delivering superior isolation from external sounds and minimizing sound leakage. The ergonomic silicon rubber earpieces come in three sizes to provide snug, customized sizing, supported by a cushioned metallic foldable headband for a secure fit and hours of comfort. … Read more

JVC rolls out a pair of smaller, more progressive high-definition Everio hard drive-based camcorders to replace its GZ-HD7 and GZ-HD3.

The new models can produce a progressive 60 frames per second 1920x1080 output (in JVC's MPEG-2 format), even though they use the same 10x zoom lenses, and same tiny low-resolution sensors as their predecessors. The HD6 has a 120GB hard drive (rated to hold 10 hours of best-quality video), and a microphone input. It comes in black, while the HD5 comes in silver and has a 60GB drive.

Both models support x.v.Color, Sony's name for xvYCC--the … Read more

JVC has previewed its product line-up for the coming year, and top of the list is a selection of LCD TVs that are--you guessed it--very thin. The top-end V series models measure just 39 millimeters at the narrowest point and 74 millimeters at the widest.

The 42DV9 and 46DV9 won't be around until later this year, but when they are they'll bring 42- and 46-inch 1080p televisual delight to U.K. living rooms. Each boasts an 8-bit panel with color bumped up to 12 bit for smoother gradations across colors. (See JVC's line for the U.S. … Read more

Microsoft said Tuesday that it has signed a patent cross-licensing deal with Japan's JVC, the latest of many such deals.

The companies did not release financial details, other than to say that money will be headed in Microsoft's direction. And, unlike many recent patent deals, the press release did not specifically mention Linux.

Not missing was the flowery language that typically accompanies such agreements. "When technological industry leaders collaborate through intellectual property licensing, we foster greater innovation that will benefit the customer, the consumer and the overall IT ecosystem," Microsoft intellectual licensing VP Horacio Gutierrez said … Read more

With all the tapeless camcorder options coming out this year, we're not surprised that JVC has limited its Mini-DV selection to two models, with very little difference between the two. Both the GR-D870 and GR-D850 include 1/6-inch 680,000-pixel CCD sensors, 35X optical KonicaMinola zoom lenses, and 2.7-inch widescreen LCDs with auto backlight control to help keep your LCD visible when moving from moderate to bright lighting conditions. JVC says that the batteries included in the cameras give you two hours of operation and remaining power, expressed in minutes, can be seen at the press of a … Read more

Gesture recognition and proximity sensors are promising to become major technologies for in-car interfaces, and JVC has stolen a march on the competition with the unveiling of its El Kameleon KD-AVX44. The buttonless single-DIN size stereo marks the return of the Kameleon nameplate, which first appeared in 1999 as a line of products that disguised themselves when not in use by blacking out to prevent theft. The modern iteration of the Kameleon also remains in darkness until a driver or front passenger reaches out to make a control selection whereupon the system's built-in proximity sensor detects the presence of … Read more

JVC made surprisingly few camcorder announcements for early 2008, which included a standard-def Everio hard-disk camcorder lineup of only two basic models, one of which comes in four flavors. On the other hand, based on the specs, they actually sound worse than their 2007 counterparts, for the same prices.

The $799 GZ-MG730, slated to ship in February, tops the line with its 1/2.5-inch 7-megapixel sensor (for producing high-resolution stills), 2.7-inch LCD, and 30GB hard disk. But oddly, the 10x zoom lens is really slow. Its maximum aperture only goes as wide as f3.5 in a category … Read more

JVC has announced a new line of LCD HDTVs, the Procision series, scheduled to come out his summer. The press release focuses on a gaggle of new video processing technologies, including Inteliigent HD processing, x.v.Color-enabled signal processing, 36-bit image processing, and Clear Motion noise reduction. That's a lot of high-tech mumbo-jumbo, but it doesn't tell us much about how the Procision series will actually perform. Intelligent HD processing dynamically adjusts picture settings and we generally recommend leaving those types of settings off; x.v.Color-enabled signal processing isn't worth much considering there are no announced … Read more