Panasonic AG-DVX100B

Pros: lots of great fine tuning, COMFORTABLE weight, pro audio abilities (and phantom power), very sharp LCD (good for focusing)

Cons: could use more physical controls

Summary: The people who reviewed this product from CNET said that the learning curve for this camera is pretty steap, and it is IF you're not all that in to cameras. This camera is designed for people that want to do profesional looking videos. Yes, they DO film TV shows and comercials with this camera (like Wild Boyz [if you wanted to see what the picture quality looks like]). So, if you're looking to step-up a consumer style camera to THIS ONE, than YES, the learning curve is steap.

My neighbor (who makes comercials for a living) was trying to convince me that HD was the way to go (as far as a good LONG TERM investment is concerned). In all honesty, it probably IS, but I find that this camera shoots very clearly for my purposes, PLUS I don't have to buy any new equipment to import my SD (standard definition) footage onto my computer (you'd need to do some upgrading if you went the HD road). The picture quality is fantastic with this camera, and it reproduces colors extremely well. All you need to do is white balance it (just by hitting a button in the front of the camera), and everything is perfect from there. If not, you can always fine tune your picture (and trust me, there's much you can fine tune in this camera).

With all of that said, i guess my only major qualm would be the shortage of physical controls on the camera itself. It CAN be tedious to go through the menu and fine-tune your picture that way, but like I said before, all you really need to do is white balance your picture and your set. There ARE physical controls for IRIS, SHUTTER, AUDIO LEVELS and more...

This last paragraph is my reason for chosing standard definition (SD) over high definition (HD), so you can skip this if you don't care to here my reasons why (this doesn't really have anything to do with the camera). So anyway, like I said, I chose an SD camera over HD, and the following is why. First of all, much of my work I export to DVD, and thus far there are no DVDs that will accept HD format (there WILL be, and it's called Blue Ray [or whatever]). Even if there were HD DVDs, I have yet to see any HD DVD players. I have only heard of one (but i'm sure there will be more to come, since I just saw some movies that were put to Blue Ray at Best Buy today). But even at THAT, you need to find a way to put it onto your computer for editting, and you need to find softwear that will preserve the clarity of HD video. All of this is too much money to spend for me, and plus HD is still an emerging form of video, so if I were you, I'd wait and just stick with the standard definition.