Ralph you can edit 60i hdv in imovie, imovie comes free on any mac including the mac mini which starts at 599. A mac mini with 1gb ram can edit hdv fine I've done it on that and my gfs macbook, two computers well within the grasp of the mainstream.

Also, the hdv cameras can downconvert for you if you don't yet have a tv or computer that can play or edit hdv.

You need to look around a bit more before you start making blanket statesments, hdv is pretty easy to handle these days.

I would have agreed with you like two and half years ago, but these claims are now way off base.

choke the machine
 

Friends,
I am talkng about editing for money....not waiting around for render rage as you have put down 3 filters to your time line, a 3d transition, or a picture in picture, and then what?...a stuttering preview if you are lucky... Then in real time run off the half hour time line to a tape so you can then get ready for your next job. NOt on an Imac....This takes a powerful computer with dual this and quad that and 4 gigs of ram and very fast drives...$2,500 to $5,000 and then a Blu Ray burner. And HD monitors and if you don't want to destroy your camera, an HD deck. That little $900 camera doesn't compare to the work machinery cost to edit with efficiency.

Right?

As HD formats go, HDV is one of the most mangeable. In your original post you were talking about HDV being overhyped and not being able to edit footage with an off-the-shelf computer. Both of these things seem a bit out of date. I agree you might have a tough time playing with three hdv streams and effects in real time, but do you have an HD format that will allow you to do that? I'm not sure I get what you are trying to say about the hv20 or hdv in general. Are you saying we should all work in SD so we dont have to worry about rendering? or that people with expensive computers should spend buy similarly expensive cameras? what about people who need a really small camera that shoots a sharp image and does 24p? at work we do uncompressed HD and it makes me really appreciate compressed video since our $14k raid allows us to play ONE stream of video in real time...