Steven: I'm told, though, by people who know way more than I ever will, that shooting HDV for the internet is the way to go. The resulting image after compression is less adversely stepped on than with SD.. True?

there isn't enuf bandwidth to properly serve up 640x480 sd, much less serve up hd rez files over the 'net... so they could only be referring to cutting the resolution down from hd to something like 320x240?

the big question here is, how accurate is the push-to-focus button? if everything works the way that it should, you wouldn't have to rely on the viewfinder.

The autofocus is acurate, but as I said before, sluggish. The lens is really big compared to the competition, so that probably explains it. Understand, I'm being hyper-critical when I say it's slow... For others it may be fine.

The thing I really don't like is the momentary switch, it's hard to nudge without moving the camera (hand-held) and it kind of snags until you get used to it.

I don't use autofocus much because I like to shoot through things in the foreground, like leaves or traffic, and that poses a problem.

I do very much like the footage readout in the viewfinder.. It may not be ruler accurate (I don't know, I haven't tested it) but it lets you quess distances and set the lens, very useful when at wide angle. I used to shoot a lot with an underwater housing (Bolex again) in my younger years, and I worked as an AC while a student at UCLA, so I learned to guess at distances pretty accurately.. Steve Rosen

thanks for the info, i use the push-to-focus button on the xl1s extensively, i never use automatic autofocus, and that momentary switch arrangement looks rather difficult to operate, compared to the xl1s version.

i really like the idea of a backfocus adjustment, tho! wish the xl1s had it.