JVC GR-PD1...How good is it?

[tartanscribeathletic]

I'e been offered a JVC GR-PD1 at a good price. The Vendor tells me that this will perform as well if not better than a DVX. Can anyone on here give me some advice about this piece of kit and how it matches up to the Panasonic?
I plan to shoot a short with the hope that it may end up on Cinema Screens so this is a pretty important decision.
thanks.

 

[Barry_Green]

Er, well, piece of "kit" kind of rhymes with what some people would term that camera.

The PD1 is basically the European version of the much-hated JVC HD1, except that they removed the high-def mode! So you end up with a 1-CCD camera that has lousy latitude, extreme contrast, no true manual control, no ability to actually lock exposure (i.e., you can set your iris, but the camera will change the shutter speed on you, or you can set the shutter speed but the camera will change the iris on you), no built-in ND filters, etc. About the only redeeming thing that camera has to offer, IMHO, is that it can shoot 720x576 at a full 50p frame rate, which is kind of neat, even if it isn't compatible with PAL television (i.e., it has to be downsampled back to 720x576x50i to be played back). So you could do some nice 50%-speed slow-motion with it.

Basically, I would pass. I think it's a fairly lousy camera, and I'd say you'd be infinitely better off with any good-quality 3-CCD, even a VX2000 would be a better camera, overall, than the PD1.