JVC Everio GZ-VX815 Review

Introduction

The new model doesn't deviate too much from its predecessor, but there are a couple of high-profile changes. Key among these are a new 12.8-megapixel sensor and a redesigned menu system. Given how much we hated the VX700's menus, we were hopeful of a big improvement with the new camera.

Design & Usability

The VX815 brings little new to the table, design-wise.

Externally, the VX815 is virtually identical to the VX700. It's similarly small and light (just 227 grams loaded with battery and memory card), but the construction quality hasn't improved one bit. We're still very concerned about the VX815's long-term durability, given its all-plastic construction.

While the menu has been rearranged, actual improvements in usability are minimal. The main menu presents you with six large icons for the primary shooting and setup options. You can also press a green "S" icon to access the Shortcut Menu, where more fluffy features like face decorations, animation effects, and so on live.

If this sounds confusing, it is. There are simply too many menus and too many ways to get at them, and the menus don't have a unified design aesthetic. Touch sensitivity hasn't really been improved, but the camcorder's reaction time has. Where we had to wait several seconds for touches to register when using the VX700—particularly when accessing the menus during recording—the VX815 responds relatively quickly. Of course, it's only quick in comparison to its predecessor; compared to the competition, your smartphone, or virtually any other touchscreen device, it's still horribly slow.

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Performance

The new, larger sensor produces gains in most situations, but it's not as sensitive or color-accurate in low light.

With its new, stills camera–sized sensor, we expected the VX815 to perform a little better than its predecessor, and for the most part it did. Color accuracy showed a big improvement, and image noise was slightly lower as well. Low-light noise was substantially lower, most likely thanks to the backside-illuminated sensor design. Videos were also sharper. Since the lens is the same construction from the VX700, we suspect the resolution jump is due to downsampling.

On the other hand, low-light sensitivity dropped a little bit. Where the VX700 could achieve 50 IRE at just 13 lux, the new model needed 20 lux to do the same. In practical terms, this means you'll need more light to achieve the same results with the VX815 than you needed with the VX700. Low-light color also suffered quite badly—while the sensor still produces plenty of saturation, colors become wildly inaccurate.

Playback

The VX815's AVCHD files look awful when played on a computer.

The VX815 records in AVCHD format using the H.264 codec. The good thing about AVCHD is that it's highly compressed on-camera and therefore you can fit a lot more video on your memory card. The downside is that it's pretty difficult to edit once you get it off the camera. The VX815 introduces another wrinkle: playing video anywhere but on the camera (or possibly from a Blu-ray disc) makes it look terrible.

We tried playing the .MTS files we got from the VX815 on several computers, and each produced images with ugly interlacing (since the camcorder records 60i and upconverts to 60p in-camera) and terrible tearing effects on objects in motion. Artifacting was pretty out of control, and the interlacing made moving patterns look extra messy. On the other hand, if you play the same video directly from the VX815 to your TV or monitor (via HDMI), it looks great—crisp, clear, and free of any artifacting or tearing. Caveat emptor.

(Note that you can download third-party software with advanced deinterlacing options to improve playback quality of the VX815's .MTS files on your PC or Mac. We recommend VLC.)

Features

It's all about the WiFi.

WiFi is all the rage in the camcorder market, and the VX-815 goes all-in with wireless features. All of these either run through HTTP, letting you view the video in a web browser, or through your smart device. Phones and tablets running iOS or Android can download JVC's Everio sync.2 app, which lets you use your device as a viewfinder over a local wireless network.

In addition to basic viewfinder functionality, you can also control recording and zoom. There are a few other interesting features, like a scorekeeping subroutine: When shooting your kid's basketball game, you can name the teams, choose their colors, and update the score via your phone's touchscreen anytime someone makes a basket. The score is superimposed on the video itself, in a rough approximation of the way a TV sports network would do it. Slightly goofy, sure, but also lots of fun.

Setting up the WiFi features is a bit tedious thanks to the T9-style (but not predictive) touchscreen keyboard, but we didn't experience any annoying pairing errors or anything. The JVC app isn't going to win any design awards, but it's actually pretty well put-together compared to most camera companies' efforts.

Beyond WiFi, the VX815 doesn't have much in the way of flashy features. There's a decent amount of manual control, but the lack of physical dials and buttons makes it pretty clunky to manage. On the other end of the scale, wacky facial overlays and animation effects will appeal to younger users (both in body and spirit, one assumes). There's also a unique smile-detection mode that tells you exactly how much a person is smiling, as a percentage. We're not sure what the platonic ideal of a smile is, but according to the VX815 we were never able to achieve it. (Also, it's easily fooled by beards.)

Conclusion

The VX815 improves on the VX700, but it's still far from best-in-class.

While it suffers from cheap construction and a needlessly complicated interface crippled by a poor-quality touchscreen, the JVC GZ-VX815 actually produces pretty good video. It's just a shame that you can't really see it at its best without playing it directly from the camcorder. Sharpness is an area of improvement from the previous model, as are noise control and color accuracy. Low-light performance suffers with the large 12.8-megapixel sensor (with the exception of low-light noise), which is a little surprising.

Bottom line: Unless you really love JVC's WiFi features or its cutesy, half-baked overlays, you can do better. The field of midrange camcorders is shrinking as high-end models get cheaper, but there are still a few good competitors at the same price point. The Panasonic HC-V720 is currently in our labs for testing, but unless it's a significant step back from last year's V700 it should smoke the VX815 where it counts. Also keep an eye out for Canon's now-discontinued HF M50 and HF M52.

If JVC stepped up its construction quality and particularly its user interface it might really have something with this mid-range Everio line, but as things stand the VX815 is a hard camcorder to recommend.

Science Introduction

Like the VX700 before it, the JVC GZ-VX815 is a solid performer in most categories, with a few notable failings. Its unusually large 12.8-megapixel sensor seems to have a few knock-on effects on image quality, both positive and negative. On the plus side, sharpness and color accuracy in good light have improved, and noise levels seem to be lower in both bright and dim shooting conditions. Unfortunately, low-light color and sensitivity took a nosedive.

If performance were all that mattered, the VX815 might be a decent buy. At $500, it's fairly competitive with competing models from Panasonic and Canon. But its operational and design quirks have to be taken into account as well, and those take a heavy toll on the camcorder's usability.

White Balance

The VX815's automatic white balance simply won't adjust to new lighting types unless you turn the camera off and on again.

One of the most annoying operational quirks we encountered with the VX815 had to do with its automatic white balance algorithm. To put it simply, we found that the white balance wouldn't react to lighting changes unless we turned the camcorder off and back on again.

In our initial white balance tests, we treated the VX815 like any other camera or camcorder. We shot video with one type of light, switched the light source, gave it a moment to adjust, and shot the next video. The results we got were singularly terrible (up to 5500 Kelvin off of ideal), so we decided our methodology must have been wrong.

We tried the test again, holding a white card in front of the camcorder after changing light sources. Still awful. We tried a third time, covering the lens entirely between lighting changes and then giving it time to readjust once we uncovered it. Still incredibly bad. Finally, we tried turning the camera off and on between each change of light source. Suddenly, we got much more reasonable results (just 686 Kelvin off under the same light).

While this didn't have a huge impact on our real-world videos (largely because we didn't often move between different lighting sources), we have to imagine it'd be a real stumbling block for some users.

Low Light Performance

Despite a fast lens and large sensor, the VX815 backslides in low-light conditions.

A fast f/1.2 lens and a big 12.8-megapixel backside-illuminated sensor ought to create some excellent low-light performance, but somehow the VX815 doesn't manage to get anything out of this potent combo.

The lone bright spot (no pun intended) was low-light noise, which was kept to an impressively low 0.925% at 60 lux. The VX700, by way of contrast, hit 1.358% at the same illumination level. But the VX815 lost ground in every other category.

For one thing, its low-light sensitivity was pretty weak. Where the VX700 could hit 50 IRE at just 13 lux (not exactly a spectacular number, but not awful), the VX815 needs 20 lux. Low-light color accuracy took a huge nosedive, too. The VX815's uncorrected (ΔC 00) color error was 9.5 in low light, which is way, way off the mark—the worst color error we'd call acceptable would be a 6.0. This issue is undoubtedly connected to both the camcorder's sensitivity problem and its white balance issues.

Battery

Battery life is improved, but it's still not good.

We complained about the battery life of the VX700, which lasted just 78 minutes of continuous shooting in our standardized battery test. The good news is that the VX815 improves on that number. The bad news is that it still sucks—89 minutes isn't anything to boast about.

Battery life of 89 minutes isn't anything to boast about. As with the VX700, it's impossible to extend the camera's battery life. There's no option for a larger battery pack, thanks to the inherited, enclosed battery compartment design. (It actually requires you to take off a part of the camcorder's shell to remove and reinsert the battery.) You can of course shoot with the camcorder plugged in to its AC adapter, but that's a clunky solution no matter how you look at it.

Test Videos

Video Motion Tests

Below are several sample videos that display the VX815's motion-rendering capabilities in a variety of lighting conditions. The first shows our still-life setup with a moving toy train and pinwheels in bright light (approximately 1500 lux), the second in low light (about 20 lux), and the third with incidental light from an incandescent bulb positioned to the left of the test scene. All videos were shot at the VX815's highest bitrate and framerate (1080/60i).

High-Speed Recording Test

Good news: Like most other camcorders these days, the VX815 offers a high-speed recording mode that produces slow-motion videos. Bad news: It's pretty terrible, with godawful resolution and blocky, pixelated edges on high-contrast objects. That's a shame, since we've seen far more impressive results from similarly priced stills cameras, like the Nikon 1 series.

Decorate Face Effect

If you were a kid who loved those fanciful sticker books that let you dress Disney characters in hats, glasses, and assorted other accessories, you just might get a kick out of the VX815's delightfully pointless Decorate Face Effect. Accessible from the Special Recording menu, this mode lets you plaster one of nine wacky overlays on your human subject. The camcorder uses its face-recognition algorithm to accurately place the virtual sticker, and resizes it appropriately (if a bit laggily) as you zoom in and out. Fun! (...for at least a few minutes.)