UX1 or HC7?
 

B&H still have some UX1 for quite reasonable price. In your opinion, which one would you think is better? The UX1 is in compressed HD and the HC7 pure HD on tape right? I would think the quality of the HC7 would be better.

Which one would you get? UX1 is $599 and HC7 is 1,150.

AVCHD (UX1) is highly compressed HD.
HDV (HC7) is also highly compressed HD.
Neither is what some might refer to as "pure" HD.
A "pure HD" camera is going to cost in the neighborhood of 100K or more. Almost all HD formats are compressed.
The HC7 is better than the UX1, no doubt, but they are very different camcorders. I have a few HC3/5/7, and have used the UX1. I'd choose an HC series over a UX1, but your needs may be different. There is no transfer time with a UX1, because the media is already a file. HDV requires transfer.

HDV on the HC7 is compressed?
 

How about the FX1? I have the FX1 and the quality is very very good. I want a small one for camping/pinic recording instead of using my FX1. Might have to stick with tapes.

I too have an FX1 and have just bought an SR7 for the same reasons as your needs. ITs small, fits in small bag and takes good stills too. In good light it is very good, my wife likes it better than the FX1!!! She just likes the increase in colour saturation I think!!! Playback is easy too, nice menuing system. Backup to PC with Sony software was Ok but not fast for the initial setup. Conversion to SD DVD took quite some time and Motion Browser is a little quirky to say the least. Making AVCHD discs with Motion Browser was a lot faster as expected since there was no transcoding involved. Vegas edits just fine and converts edited output to SD DVD MPEG stream in about 2 times realtime on my AMD X2 4200, 2G RAM. For intended use as a small camera for family events it fits the job nicely and I am happy.
In low light, gain in automatic is too much, image is brighter than reality and the image suffers with the encoder having difficulty with the grainy picture. However it is no worse than my HC96 DV under these conditions. The FX1 is as expected a lot, lot better in low light.

Ron Evans