My HV20 arrived yesterday afternoon and I've been floored by the quality. Granted, this was a move up from a cheap cheap camera, and the first time I've seen anything I made in HD, but I'm quite happy with it already.
There's a 24P mode to this camera, and I'd recommend that you do a comparison. The frame rate is slightly slower (24 full progressive frames per second, instead of 30 interlaced frames) and you get a much more dramatic look. The instant AF is also very nice, and focus/aperture is much more noticeable with HD.
Get a new external drive, though - I learned last night the video eats up about 10MB per second. Totally worth it, though.
There's a 24P mode to this camera, and I'd recommend that you do a comparison. The frame rate is slightly slower (24 full progressive frames per second, instead of 30 interlaced frames) and you get a much more dramatic look. The instant AF is also very nice, and focus/aperture is much more noticeable with HD.
Get a new external drive, though - I learned last night the video eats up about 10MB per second. Totally worth it, though.
My HV20 is on the UPS truck right now, coming tomorrow
i made my decision to buy a mini DV over a SD or hard drive camera for many of the reasons stated on this thread.
Now, I am looking at editing software. It looks like I can burn HD-DVDs with Final Cut Studio 2. Although FCS2 is a lot of money, I am seriously considering buying it so I can burn short HD-DVDs on regular DVDs that can be played on my Toshiba HD-A2. I've been looking for a good workflow that would make this really simple. If anyone can suggest a site, please do so. Thanks.
