I've decided on the HVX200
 

My experience has been with Canon XL1-s, XL2, JVC hd10u, Sony FX-1. Recently, I've been editing Sony HDV and cranking out HDDVD on the Toshiba unit. I've filmed in Alaska and Disney and I thought my HDV looked pretty good. Certainly leaps and bounds above "most" DV.

But when I saw the specs of the HVX200 and some of the sample video, I knew I had to have this camera. Sure I looked at the Canon H1. Great machine. but it came down to the formats, the bandwidth, and recording options. The Canon is like in another price bracket anyway with all the add ons. But 100mbps, 4:2:2 sampling and a FCP friendly format was very tantalizing after dealing with HDV. I've seen both sides of the fence and it's not just about resolution. The bottom line is the quality of the video and I for one am impressed with the HVX200. So much so that I just sold my FX-1, Canon 20d, and my dual 1.8 mac. I;m upgrading to a quad core mac and just ordered my HVX200 and FS-100. I dhould have it all within 2 weeks and I can't wait.

I take it you were using DVD SP for the HD footage?

What encode rates?

Any problem with menus on the Toshiba?

Hvx200
 

I use the compressor mpeg HD since the Toshiba doesn't like Apples H-264 codec. Also, encoding HDV to H-264 takes forever. (80 hours for a 1/2 hour video.)
The Toshiba does not like DVDSP buttons either. Compression artifacts are real apparent if the bit rate is high. Overall, the quality is OK but certainly, the inherant issues with HDV come out in the end.

Hello Dee,
That has been experience as well. I see footage from all the HDV cameras and the HVX. I have an apple to apple (no pun intended) comparison. Some of the HDV footage is so racked with artifacts that it is just unusable. The Sony HDV camera has been out longer than the HVX but in 4 months I have seen the HVX from snowy mountaintops to Maui surf and all points in between. The HDV footage cannot compare. Granted we do have and will have some HDV footage posted but from the final results I see, I feel this summer will be a hotbed of HVX shooting!!

Agreed. Now don't get me wrong. The Sony HDV from the camera to the TV or, on the Mac, from Virtual DHVS through my JVC DHVS looks real good. But after rendering and converting for output on HDDVD media, I was disappointed. My experience today with the HVX footage was very pleasing.

Now, if Apple would figure out why the buttons on their menus won't work, I'll feel better about my investment. And, Just for the record, Toshiba's remote with this HDDVD player is the worst I've ever seen. No backlight, black background with gray writing. You just can't see what the buttons are unless you have your car headlights shining on the thing. It's a good thing I bought the XBOX 360 universal remote. Works like a charm.