With Vegas supporting ACHDV in 3 days......
 

Can I get some opinions on which of the consumer grade HD cams is best, I love the no tapes thought ( I have hundreds now) and I am trying out the Sony SR1 at this moment and the picture is pretty decent and the 5.1 DD is actually fairly neat as well but I hear the Canon HV20 has a better picture.

Having video all ready to go in post without the dread of using Cineform and fast forwarding through tapes is appealing and I have tapes that are 3 years old and glitchy not to mention head wear.

Make no mistakes its all about video quality so if its tapes that are better, so be it, I went the 4K HD camcorder route and got burned with the original JVC, I want to keep it cheaper this time and the SR1 blows the JVC JYHD10US out of the water in low light as well as vibrant colors after post and the OIS on the Sony is AMAZING and looks stunning on Blue Ray on my 15' 2.35:1 screen using a 3 chip DLP Mercury HD

Any opinions between the
Canon HV20
Sony SR1
JVC new $1400 ( my old JY has dead pixels and terrible sound)
Panasonic
any other suggestions?

I have scoured the forums and see no comparisons, and have a wedding coming very soon as well as my crane is getting lonely and needs a good workout

My opinion is to stay away from AVCHD for now. In my opinion, it looks poor compared to HDV. It has its problems in low light and lots of motion artifects. Plus, if there is an edit solution, you better have a super computer.

You mentioned your crane is getting lonely. In that case you don't want the Canon HV20 either as it doesn't have a LANC controler, so it would be difficult to start/stop and zoom while using your crane.

The Sony HC7 I feel would be the best camera for your needs. The picture looks as good as the HV20 in my opinion, and you have more custom controls. I would definitely recommend the HV20 if it had LANC. Canon really messed up on that one.

In my opinion I would avoid the JVC GZ HD7 camera like the plague. Its picture quality is not near as good as the Canon HV20 or Sony HC7, and its small chips are poor in low light. I've also heard it's a nightmare to edit with.

The codec has problems with low light? Or is it the cams sensors/lens/digital processing. There have been no ACHDV cams of the prosumer variety so I don't see how image quality compared to $5000 HDV cams determines anything definative.
Yes ACHDV is CPU intensive, which is why we haven't seen the higher bitrate "prosumer" versions yet, but just like HDV it is so much more efficient than older codecs it will become mainstream when the average consumer has the CPU power to make it easy. As far as motion artifacts, just like HDV it depends on how much processing power you want to put in the cam. A codec isn't the same on every cam. For example the new super encoder of the JVC HD200/250 does twice the frame rate of the older JVC 100/110 (720p30 vs. 720p60) yet has better picture qality while still using the same bit rate. As processing power increases, ACHDV at the same bit rate will be much better. But right now size/weight/price is the name of the game so don't expect massive processing power in a tiny consumer cam. But don't blame the codec, we have no idea what it is capable of yet.

The problem with most of these threads on AVCHD is that they are comparing apples with oranges. For picture quality needed for editing then HDV is better than AVCHD--NOW. But would someone tell me which HDV camcorder can instantly display all the clips it has on its LCD and start playing any selected one instantly? I tell you NONE. Please don't mention DR60 and V1 not quite in the same price point and this is not as good as XDCAm HD either!!! Will the low light performance of these AVCHD cams meet the VX2000--No, but neither will most of the HDV cams either. For the average consumer I think the AVCHD cams are a much better choice. Instant gratification, easy backup, easy convertion to DVD ( now and in the future for HD). So they don't perform like a high end camera in difficult conditions, so what, they have other atributes NOT available in these high end camcorders that are of real use to the average user. ITs a bit like saying my truck isn't as good as a Corvette. Actually my truck is a lot better than a Corvette at towing a trailer or carrying 7 people and luggage etc etc.

Ron Evans