A bit off topic, but what do you think about the HF10? I'm in the market for a HD camcorder. I went to the store to look at the minDV HV30 but the HF10 is much smaller. I'm not sure if I'm ready to change formats. I do like that miniDVs are self archiving, compatible with iMovie and a proven format... but the HF10 was really really small! Do you need FCE to convert the format or will iMovieHD work?
The size was one of the main reasons for me to get one. it's about the size of a DSLR lens so it fits nicely into the lens slots of my canon gadget bag along with my DSLR. The tapes were what deterred me from getting the HV30 also. I'm don't really need to archive RAW footage, just the final edits in .mov is fine for me and i don't have stacks of tapes piling up. also I've never worked with HDV but i heard that you have to capture in real time, wouldn't this mean that you have to sit there and monitor it while it captures? so you don't capture one large clip by accident? AVCHD as far as i know it very easy to get into FCE, all i have to do is plug in the camera, enter some log information then away it goes and does its thing. in the meantime i can leave to get a snack or browse macrumors. Encode times are not bad at all either, it's a little faster than real time on my MBP. people say that the video quality is not as good as tape, which I don't doubt but when i was doing my research before buying, i couldn't find any examples that REALLY showed the difference, both looked amazing so i opted for the HF10. as far as editing goes, iMovie 08' can handle the AVCHD files just fine so you really don't need FCE just to get into AVCHD. but I'm unsure about iMovieHD though, and i know for a fact that you can't work with AVCHD on a PowerPC based mac. either way, it's ultimately up to the individual and what they want out of a camera. good luck with your purchase!