HD Everio's 10x optical zoom lens is supplied by FUJINON, a leader in HD optics for both the broadcast media and motion picture industries. It provides superior optical performance and nearly the same brightness (F1.8-1.9) throughout its f=3.3mm~33mm zoom range by virtue of its three aspherical lens elements, one made of indexed glass. In addition, the lens surface is coated with a new Electronic Beam Coating (EBC) that greatly reduces degradation caused by light reflecting off the lens surfaces, leading to greater light transmission and reduced flaring and ghosting.

For bright, realistic colours the HD Everio uses three 1/5-inch CCDs — one each for red, green and blue. Naturally, by having dedicated CCDs for each primary colour, the camera is able to gather the maximum visual information which leads to more realistic colour reproduction and presence. In addition, to ensure precise prism/CCD registration, JVC has incorporated FUJINON mounting technology used in professional camcorders.

The HD Everio GZ-HD7 is the world's first consumer camcorder to offer Full HD 1920x1080i recording. That's native 1920x1080i resolution that is maintained all the way from the lens and CCD, to MPEG2 Transport Stream video with MPEG 1 Layer 2 audio, to output via HDMI, i.LINK or USB2.0. So the Full HD quality you get at the camera is exactly what you get in your recordings, with no conversion or loss of resolution.

In addition to point-and-shoot simplicity, HD Everio also offers a wide range of manual controls including a manual focus ring, manual white balance, exposure control, shutter priority mode, aperture priority mode and sharpness control. In addition, a Focus Assist function displays the edge of the in-focus elements in colour while the rest of the image is black-and-white, making it easy to check which image elements are in focus. And a Zebra function displays a striped pattern across highlight areas on the image in the LCD monitor, making it easier to manually set the exposure.

The HD Everio can be connected to the optional HD Everio SHARE STATION CU-VD40 via USB 2.0 cable. This SHARE STATION lets you create HD data discs to archive HD video clip files and writes to both DVD-R and DVD-RW discs. It also allows for the creation of digital stills in a JPEG format. Dual-layer DVD-R is also supported, which means that the combination of the HD Everio and the CU-VD40 provides a PC-less solution to the high-capacity archiving needs of HD content. HD and still files can be played back in ultra-high quality via the CU-VD40's HDMI output without the use of a computer or the camcorder.

The HD Everio is equipped with three digital interfaces — USB, HDMI and i.LINK. USB is primarily for file saving, HDMI for digital viewing on large screen displays, and i.LINK streams high definition video in full resolution or 1440CBR mode. HD recorded material is down-converted for output in DV over i.LINK, or in standard definition via the analogue component/ S-Video/ Composite output.