I think we're greatly simplifying film art with this idea of "film look". There is no film "look". The art of film is using the moving image (an not always even that) to tell a story or evision some meaning. Film now doesn't look like it did in the silent era, it doesn't look like it did in the seventies for that matter. There is no end to what film (here being used loosely for any medium) can look like. I'm not sure exactly what film look people mean to attain but there are thousands of them all born of the major trends of film making since the moving image was cultivated as an art form. The medium means little. Am i saying that some equipment is no more limiting than other equipment? Of course not. Yet those limitations are hugely belittled by the true art of film encompassed in cinematography, directing, acting and writing, that I can assure you.

Not to skip the techie side of it: I bought a DVX100a because for my money it gave by far the richest image of any the cameras in its price range and that was what I wanted. Secondly, for the sake of the actors I'm working with the progressive mode has the type of motion blur they are accustomed to seeing in film so you see something closer to the end product on the monitor (not that they have been on film before, but they've watched a lot;). Before anyone says "wait you said film doesn't have a look". That isn't film its fps. Interlaced video after a good film out played a 24fps looks like what we're accustomed to seeing on the big screen too, but if it's lit like sh!t and framed like sh!t it's still going to look like a home movie at 24fps. Maybe that would serve an idea or story though, who knows, and that's my point. Films look like they do because the director and cinematographer were trying to achieve a look that fits thier ideal of the story. That should be a film-maker's first concern, right?

Find the look you want and find out how to make with the best equipment you get, or experiment and find something you haven't seen before. Either way if anyone else is going to see it on a big screen its going to be at 24fps (for now).

Oh, just to chime in on one more thing film is on the way out have no doubt. It will always be around to some degree, don't get me wrong, but as we start getting more cameras with ridulous data rates and smaller hard-drives, you'll see. So many big movies now use digital intermediates as is, plus the bonus of seeing your footage the moment you shoot it, non-linear editing, etc... There will always be die-hards but it's going the way of the LP. So anyhow, I'll shut up now. I've already wasted to much of everyone's time on this verbal vomiting.

The dvx100 doesn't look like film. It looks like a hybrid..the "vilm" look...

The sdx900 is a great cam, but it's for rental only. A "baby" sdx900 with SD, 1/2 chips, 24p and 16x9 could be sold for 6 to 8k and be used to make flicks that could projected digitally or uprezzed to film.

The dvx100a needs just a weeeee bit of resolution boost, and 16x9 native.

I hear you, man. Never said it did but it moves more like what people are used to seeing on the big screen than 60i. Vilm is a good name for it. For my budget the 100a is the best I can do right now to achieve what I want. I may have held off on buying it if there was something between the 100a and the sdx900 with a bit higher resolution and native 16:9. I guess more to my point two DV movies have won best cinematography in major festivals (Personal Velocity & November) so that shows even the dvx100a should be enough to make a good looking and compelling film image. That's the whole of it. Do the best you can with what you can get your hands on. For me, that's the 100a.