ccd count does matter
 

Barry, CCD's do transfer photosite charge in an analog manner, but you should not confuse that with the 'old world' way of thinking, as in a megahertz type of rating for resolution. I'm not sure that is what you were hinting at. CCD's have a very distinct and effective charge transfer from each and every photosite out to the external ADC. The effective samples may then be stretched and scaled to any size they want, but the native resolution is still what it was. As long as the optics does a good job of , say illuminating only the odd photosites, the resolution is defined by that limit. Of course no optics can do that with 100% contrast between odd and even avalable pixels, but they try.

The edge enhancement 'they' apply to the resized image do make the image look sharper to the eye, but look horrid to film people that are used to looking at film.
This whole uprezing reminds me of the days of cheap flatbed scanners that claimed all kinds of DPI ratings, but they were just interpolating ( resizing/scaling) the data. A lot of BS.

It will all come out in the wash when someone points the cameras at a standard resolution chart with line pair patterns. Up sizing that and then sharpening won't pick up the finest line pairs that the original ccd source didn't capture. Aliasing aside, it's all about the ccd dimensions , the optics, and the compression that it undergoes.

Let's see how some line pair charts look like! It would make a great shootout.
Now only if they saved more that 8 bits/color, that would wipe out the 16mm film cameras for good!

"Also because everything is derived from the 1080p scan the 720p will not be as sharp as it could otherwise be, but will have a slight noise reduction benefit."

from my observations thought 720p had more noise then 1080.
switching to 1080 didn't really increase resolution but maybe a little less noise - now the resolution might be because viewing on 720p monitor ?

this is an example of where theory and practice dont necessary tally - another example is the notion that pixel shift can increase resolution just take a look at the following jpeg

http://rapidshare.de/files/9046674/pixel_shift.jpg.html

it shows the effect of resolution increase in the luma from the co-sited pixels at A, pixel shifted 50% at B and the contribution to the luma of the extra resolution at C. Ok there is a resolution increase but it can hardly be seen and is obtained from a huge penalty to overall image contrast; a bit like 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'

Sony use a horizontal pixel shift but the resolution charts show it has little effect and therefore no practical benefit.

I left feedback on Panasonic's website about updating the message on the HVX200 page about the delivery date, which has been corrected. I also notated my observation that an online Operating Manual is missing. Today, I was grateful to receive a personalized email from Panasonic's Corporate Brand Marketing Department, which stated that it will be added to their site "in the coming weeks."

So hopefully that answers someone's question on this subject.

Cheers!
Bob

Thanks for that update, Robert!