I've had the low end Sony for about a month now. I must say it's not so easy to move the footage thru the process ...

Some hurdles I've experienced:

- Camera shake shows up nicely
- Pans cause bigtime blur (vs a locked down shot)
- XP(Mac) is required to capture
- Need a HD monitor to see it (even a PC monitor is not quite there)
- Need hardware or a super PC to really play
- Need a super PC to edit

BUT .. the picture is damb good ...

Here is a test I did when I 1st got the camera. I did the same shot with a Nikon 5MP still <top left>, the Sony HDV (1 cmos) <top right>, and my TRV900 (3ccd) <bot left> and TRV picture sharpened in post <bot right>.

I filmed, captured, grabbed the frames in vegas, put them in photoshop ... then bicubic down sized to DV size. Yes ... the higher detail is retained even at standard def. (um ... until your TV gets it )

BTW: All were manual white balanced. The TRV colors are the most accurate. The Nikon's look nice, but are off. The HDV has a problem with red.

http://www.trevlac.us/pics/slices.jpg