The Everio HD GZ-HD7 is both innovative and disappointing at the same time.

The Everio HD GZ-HD7 is a high-definition camcorder with an unusual (and welcomed) twist. Instead of recording its video to tape or DVD, the camera stores footage on a built-in 60GB hard drive that holds 5 hours of HD video. That means you can shoot almost all day and skip the hassle of popping in a blank tape or DVD every hour, and you won’t have to worry about keeping spare media lying around the house. When the camera gets full, you can just plug it into your Mac’s USB port and transfer the video to your hard drive.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the camera doesn’t come cheap: At $1,700, the GZ-HD7 is expensive, even by consumer HD standards. The hard drive also makes the JVC heavier and bulkier than other HD consumer models, enough to feel a difference if you’re carrying it around all day.

Most importantly, the GZ-HD7’s image quality is disappointing. Its 1080i picture didn’t capture good detail in far-off subjects, the colors were oversaturated, and the optical image stabilization left plenty of jitter in our handheld shots.

The Everio HD GZ-HD7 does have a jack to connect an external microphone, but there’s no jack to connect headphones, so you can’t listen to what you’re recording. The camera uses a proprietary video format, and JVC provides an iMovie HD 6 plug-in, but the footage doesn’t work in Final Cut or iMovie ’08 without a tedious conversion process.

The bottom line. We love the HD7’s roomy hard drive, but the camera’s sky-high price and subpar image quality should make you think twice before buying. If you plan to edit video in anything other than iMovie HD 6, we’d recommend skipping the Everio HD GZ-HD7 altogether.

COMPANY: JVC

CONTACT: camcorder.jvc.com

PRICE: $1699.95

REQUIREMENTS: Multicore Intel Mac, Mac OS 10.4.9 or later, 512MB RAM (1GB to 2GB for video playback), 10GB disk space, SuperDrive

Hard drive stores five hours of video. Works with external mics. Nice manual focus ring.

Expensive. Not-so-sharp imagery. Bad image stabilization. No headphone jack. Footage hard to edit in Final Cut. Not fully iMovie ’08 compatible.