Home TV ministudio on tight budget

[Ervin Farkas]

Project: (very) small TV studio with controlled lighting
Work: filming interviews, round tables
Final product: standard definition miniDV tape and DVD
Video switcher: DataVideo SE-800

Having worked with DV and S-video quality signals (Canon GL2, Sony PD170) and recognizing the limits of those formats, would like to move up to component.

Question: would today's CMOS/HDV techology bring about a significant improvement? Practically, using a camera like the Sony HC7 or some other one in the same category via the component output feeding into the switcher and digitizing the resulting signal be a step up in video quality compared to using a GL2 or PD170 via S-video?

Thanks,