Often called High Def these HDV cameras aren’t true HD. While HDV looks great and the resolution may be high, the color space is only 4:2:0. The compression poses peoblems in post production. HDV is basically a high res SD.

Two very important features on a camera in that range are the size of the CCD’s and the lens. I see no reason to have a fixed lens on a camera this expensive - but only the JVC and Canon offer this.

JVC HD110 and HD250 is the best of them. The stock lens is better than the others and there is the option of using an attached hard drive for longer recording, and no HDV compression yet still offers 24p.

Canon XL H1 offers 1440x1080 native CCD’s but uses Canon’s “frame mode” rather than true progressive scanning. The stock lens isn’t very good, but it’s removable. It offers a HD-SDI connection, presented as a 60i signal that includes pulldown. When output through an HD-SDI connection, the 24F signal bypasses internal HDV compression and is delivered as a traditional 1920 x 1080 YUV 4:2:2 60i signal for use by external equipment.

Panasonic DVX200 is one of the best and the only one that offers true DVCPRO HD recording. However only to the solid-state memory cards. And they aren’t cheap nor do they hold much video. You get above the $10,000 range with 16GB of storage. But a fixed lens is unacceptable in a camera at this price range.

Sony HDR-FX7 is a fine camera and less expensive than the others. It has 3 1/4” CMOS Sensors but no option to record to hard drive or solid-state media. It’s Ziess lens is nice, but fixed and no XLR inputs.