I searched for some time already. In the past I was researching and found many good MiniDV cameras with the lovely 3CCD sensor. The issue is in the name, MiniDV. Very bad for modern usage. I could sadly never find a 480p 3CCD camera with SD-Cards that is not a crappy consumer camera. Until now: The JVC GY-HM100! It can do: 1080i, 720p AND 480p (In the Photo mode). This is near perfect! Native 480p in Video mode too would be perfect but this is still very good. It is a professional camera on all fronts! It is from 2009 and if you go even a little more high end you end up with MiniDV again. There are SOME SD-Card models for professionals that are actual higher end BUT they are like 2000 euro even in 2025! Even the JVC GY-HM100 is already on the expensive side of things and really rare already. The JVC GY-HM700 would peak... camera and price wise~.
The availability if JVC's documentation is really unreliable and some pages are down already. I liked to all documentations I could find on the official website. I also liked a few website Archives (Has some but not all files) and a Archive of the documentation too. As far as I could see it has all files from the website Archive and some missing files that the website Archive did not have. I separated the the sources section a little because I linked to EVERY useful file I could find.
I will also talk a lot "out of my a*s" because I don't know anything about cameras and the terms used. I'm only toying around with it and try to get photos I like and then try to convey my opinion, impressions and experiences with the camera. I mostly don't know what I need to do to make a photo good. I don't know anything about cameras and I'm not a photographer nor do I want to become one. I'm just having fun with a old camera. If I get something wrong and you know the right terminology or a better way to convey what I want to say about something tell me and I will fix it and credit you.
Also: ALL Photos on this entry are made with the JVC GY-HM100. Only the example Photos are uncompressed!
Example Photos to show the camera in may different conditions
(Some are edited for privacy. I keep it at a minimum and the important part is always completely visible. All photos I edited for privacy have a *P in front of there description.).
All are uncompressed to show the strength and weakness of the camera
(Small note: I notices some images have compression artifacts. I really do not know where in my tool chain that happenes. I have all images uncompressed on my SSD and they don't have ANY compression artifacts. All tools I use were set to 100% quality/uncompressed. I tried re-upload them but it happened again. It seems to happen somewhere in between editing them for the website and getting them uploaded).
The only general modification I did to the Photos is applying auto-correction in RawTherapee.
The Photos from the camera are very flat so you can edit them better later
(That totally normal for professional cameras!):
*P - Light conditions were really bad but at the same time it brought the 3CCD look very visible. Dark corners and strong contrast with soft transition to the shadow sites.
*P - A cassette I bought a long while ago. The cassette is "touched, or been touched by" by "twinkle park (smiling broadly (hazel))". I used my workbench light in the photo and it is very sharp and has great contrast. At the same time you can see how low the resolution of the sensor is.
*P - In this photo I love how the dynamic range, I think it is called, is visible and shows the limits of the camera. The background goes from white to black and Coffee has such a nice light and shadow around him. It also shows how great the details are in the photo. The resolution is the only limit, else you can see all the details of his fur. Is also shows the distinct look the 3CCD video cameras often produce with the limits of the brightness rage and the weird vignetting in many Photos. I love it. You can also see that the 3 senors are not perfectly alight anymore after 16 years (they a still 99% perfect) and the chromatic aberration becomes a little visible.
I also tried macro photos and I can not believe how close you can get in front of the lens and still focus. This is as close I could make a photo (tried zoom and distance and this is pretty much right against the lens and the zoomed in about 2x and focused). I took a photo of the paper insert of the album "Post Human: Nex Gen" from "Bring Me the Horizon". You can clearly see the paper structure very clearly.
A other macro photo. This time from a page of the Artbook of “Pandoras Tower”. It's kinda funny how not so well it is printed if you look too close. I know this is nothing special if you think about what other more modern cameras can do but I think it is still impressive. I don't even use a special lens or something.
And yet a other macro photo. A face closeup of a figure of “Nazuna Nanakusa (七草 ナズナ)” from “Call of the Night”. Not as impressive, but still funny that you can see literally all the dust I will never clean of.
And the last macro photo for now. This time of the disc of the "Bring Me the Horizon" album. Very… dusty. I can not see the dust with just my eyes, maybe a little if I pit at next to a strong light.
The camera can do videos in 1080i@30 and 720p@60. Photos can be 1080p, 720p and 480p. The Resolution change seems only to cutout the sensor. I tried to find the exact sensor but was unable to, but it seems like the sensor is 16:9 and takes photos always at 1080p and only cuts out in all other settings..
It needs/want's two SD-Cards for some reasons and from my testing works with 64GB SD-cards. Not tested higher. It format's them to 32GB LOL. One SD-Card seems to work too but I always use two because it guaranty's that I can always record and take photos.
The HDMI/Component out is good BUT NOT useful for capturing. HDMI can do up to 480p, Component can do 480i, 720i and 1080i (I don't know why this is so weirdly separated and the resolutions are so… selective. Probably old HDMI and Component specification from back in 2009, maybe?) The full quality ONLY gets captured if you record or take Photos. Photos MUST be created in Photo mode. In Video mode you are taking Snap Shots and if you use it for to often the camera even complains that you should not take snapshots LOL. They knew xD.
Battery's can still be bought for the camera but it also has a stupid "Info-Chip" like Sony cameras, meaning they want to force you to buy a official one's (that is no longer are produced (and JVC dose no longer really exist)) and third party's needed to reverse engineer it, and thankfully they did. The official charger and the battery get a little warm when charging. I would recommend pointing a small fan at them. Keeping old hardware alive like this is important or you will start hunting used, old, crappy and rare chargers or third part fire starters. I just use my workbenches Noctua fan for that and that little air moved by the 5V are more then enough to keep everything very cool while charging. The now 16 year old battery's still work relatively well. They take as long as back then to charge and still hold around 50% of the original amount of energy. Getting third party once is highly recommended to make sure your not stranded with dead old battery's. Most third party once hold around 2900mAh. I would never leave the old and new battery's alone when charging or in the camera when not used for a longer time. You newer know with old battery's and new third party once.
A little bit of Info Dumping:
The offical Charger:
Model-Nr.: AA-VF8U
Pinout: - C T +
Output: DC7.2V. 1.12A
The offical Battery:
Model-Nr.: BN-VF823U
Specification: DC7.3@2115mAh
The offical AC-Adapter to use without Battery:
Model-Nr.: AC-CU602
Output: DC11V@1A
Pinout: - |_ |- +
Photos to make the Pinout better understandable (The L Part has - and the single line metal peace is +):
I posted this entry to early by accident but really needed to fix the sitemap. Meaning: I will updated this entry with photos and some more text about my experiences with it later over time. It also take time getting to know a devices quirks.
I also want to change my media library completely and move it over to its own subdomain with photos loaded from GitHub raw so I can upload higher image quality photos without the current issue with my providers server data transfer limitation or what ever it is getting in the way. This will hopefully don't take too long, but I have my hands full with my game RE//POSSESSED at the moment. If it is just a plan change then this will be done way faster, else this will be done way later.
