I'm looking at picking up a HVR-25U to replace my current DSR-11. I work as a DP in Toronto and use a Firestore FS4ProHD to capture a DV downconvert while shooting. I'll deliver the Firestore files as a "digital daily" of the HDCam material but will then often dump the drive to DVCam (using TC of source material) when I get home. I don't have an edit system at home so it's a bit of a nuisance hooking up a monitor to the DSR-11 to make sure the material is transfering properly. I've been cruising e-bay for something like a DSR-45 but the M25U is almost the same price, brand new with a warranty AND seems to have a nicer little confidence screen.

Has anyone had any hands-on experience with this deck? I've scoured though the manual and the only thing that raised an eyebrow is that it won't do a 4:3 letterbox output of 16:9 source material over firewire (not at all a concern for me).

Thanks in advance,

From the little of what I remember of the M25U, it has extremely unresponsive shuttling controls. For example, if it's fast forwarding and you hit stop it takes several seconds to stop (and you're about a minute later in timecode). If this is important, the older M10 model is much better. The M10 model's HDV out also works better with the Miranda HD-Bridge (something changed with the M25 firmware which the Miranda doesn't like; things may have changed by now). But the slow shuttling issue and the not working with Miranda issue may not be a problem for you at all.