Funny thing about Amazon reviews: anyone can create one and there is minimal fact checking. They range from single review shills who post ad copy verbatim to dingbats who rate a product one star because the delivery took an extra day.
With this camcorder, there appears to be three overall groups: those who don't even own it but feel they have to inform others about competing products, those who can't get it to work well in automatic mode or with their computers, and those who love it. For those who have only read reviews on other sites and copy that info here, yeah, I can and do read other websites, too. It's not helpful to include that information here, especially if the reviewer has not even used the HD7.
For the second group, I'd agree that the GZ-HD7 does not perform very well as a "point and shoot" camcorder. To get the most out of it, it should be operated in manual mode. It's not difficult but does take a little practice and experimenting. I'd admit the image stability system doesn't seem to work well and drops it down to 4.5 stars. As far as the computer interface, I just bought Corel's Ulead Video Studio 11.5 Plus program and that works perfectly with this--just copy the files over and open the .tod. Note: I got this as an open box and didn't receive the software. The Ulead program was the same price as what JVC wanted for the replacement disc.
Put me firmly in the third group. This thing is GREAT! Except for the image stability, it's perfect. Others say mini DV systems are the way to go for archival purposes. Sure, if your camcorder still works. I have a bunch of old tapes and a broken camcorder... and a new MiniDV camcorder that doesn't play those old tapes. Give me an HDD, 3 CCD, slap on an f1.8 Fujinon lens, and I'm happy.
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