JVC Everio GZ-HD320

Colour (17.16)

In our colour tests in bright light, we found that the GZ-HD320 captured very accurate colour, so it should faithfully capture and reproduce the colours of the real world. The saturation of these colours was also pretty much spot-on. (More on how we test colour.)

Colour Accuracy Performance
Colour Test Chart (above), colour Error Map (right)
The JVC GZ-HD320 produced a colour error of 2.04 and a saturation level of 96.51% in our bright light colour testing. (The map on the right is a diagram of the colour error. The length and direction of each line indicates how the camcorder processed each particular colour.)

In the chart s above, you can see that the JVC GZ-HD320 did well, the lines between the original colours (the squares) and the captured colours (the circles) are very short. The only colours that it has a slight problem with are the greens, which are a little oversaturated.

JVC GZ-HD320 colour Modes
Auto	100% Crop

The GZ-HD320 does not offer any colour modes other than the aforementioned Auto mode, so there is no way to tweak the colours in the camera if you want to enhance skin tones or produce more vivid colours.

JVC GZ-HD320 colour Comparisons
JVC GZ-HD320	Panasonic HDC-HS20
Canon Legria HF20	Sanyo VPC-HD2000

In the chart below, you can see how accurately the JVC GZ-HD320 captures several common colours, as well as how competing camcorders do.

	Close-Up Colour Comparisons
	Ideal	JVC GZ-HD320	Panasonic HDC-HS20	Canon Legria HF20	Sanyo VPC-HD2000
Red
	Ideal	JVC GZ-HD320	Panasonic HDC-HS20	Canon Legria HF20	Sanyo VPC-HD2000
Green
	Ideal	JVC GZ-HD320	Panasonic HDC-HS20	Canon Legria HF20	Sanyo VPC-HD2000
Blue
	Ideal	JVC GZ-HD320	Panasonic HDC-HS20	Canon Legria HF20	Sanyo VPC-HD2000
Skin Tone 1
	Ideal	JVC GZ-HD320	Panasonic HDC-HS20	Canon Legria HF20	Sanyo VPC-HD2000
Skin Tone 2

As you can see, the HD320 is significantly more accurate than most of our comparison camcorders, although many of the colours are somewhat darker than we like to see. The two critical skin tones are very accurately captured, though.

Colour Performance Scores

Noise (10.29)

The JVC GZ-HD320 had very low noise in our tests: we found that it averaged about 0.56% noise when shooting in bright light. That's a very respectable noise level that is significantly lower than most of our comparison models: the Canon Legria HF20 had 0.93% noise, and the Sanyo had 0.62%. The Panasonic HDC-HS20 did beat the JVC here, though; we measured the noise in that camcorder at 0.42%  (More on how we test noise.)

Noise Comparisons
JVC GZ-HD320 100% Crop	Panasonic HDC-HS20 100% Crop	Canon Legria HF20 100% Crop	Sanyo VPC-HD2000 100% Crop

Although the JVC has low noise, it also has low detail; in the crops above you can see how the JVC does not reproduce the fine details of our test chart well, especially when compared to the HF20. With the JVC, the fine details of the trumpet chart get lost significantly sooner than the others, which means that fine details in your videos are not going to be well reproduced.

Noise Score Comparisons