Camera with full HD

[uno]

I have for some years had a Sony HDR-HC5 videocamera with PAL1080/50i. Sometimes when I did not have the videocamera I have used my canon stillcamera for video with some qualityloss as it is not full HD.
I therefore thought of buying the new Sony stillcamera HX9 to have as a complement. It seems to have full HD with 24mbps and 60fps.
Now I wonder is 24 mbps a higher bitrate than the old videocamera have? If so will this give a better picture?
Also if there is 60fps - does this mean that I have to convert the film as I do with the old stillcamera which has 24fps? I use AVSvideonverter for this.

[edDV]

I have for some years had a Sony HDR-HC5 videocamera with PAL1080/50i. Sometimes when I did not have the videocamera I have used my canon stillcamera for video with some qualityloss as it is not full HD.
I therefore thought of buying the new Sony stillcamera HX9 to have as a complement. It seems to have full HD with 24mbps and 60fps.
Now I wonder is 24 mbps a higher bitrate than the old videocamera have? If so will this give a better picture?
Also if there is 60fps - does this mean that I have to convert the film as I do with the old stillcamera which has 24fps? I use AVSvideonverter for this.

Your Sony HDR-HC5 was MPeg2 HDV, anamorphic 1440x1080 50i that recorded at 25 Mb/s

The still camera "qualityloss" was most likely due to compression, not resolution.

Anamorphic 1440x1080 can result in a greater picture quality vs. "Full HD" 1920x1080 which compresses more per pixel. It is a trade-off of resolution vs. compression.

Recent consumer camcorders and still cameras have moved from MPeg2 to h.264 compression to allow recording to flash media. Broadcast camcorders have mostly stayed with MPeg2. While the h.264 codec offers greater compression efficiency vs. MPeg2, the early h.264 hardware compression chips have not provided dramatic picture quality improvement but have allowed recording 1920x1080 at 24 Mb/s vs. HDV 1440x1080 at 25 Mb/s. Broadcast camcorders record 1920x1080 MPeg2 at 35-40 Mb/s.

Alternate standards like 24p and 60i/60p can be used for computer distribution but do not match well to PAL 50i/25p. 24p needs speedup to 25p/50i. 60i/60p need to be slowed down to 50i/50p. This causes quality drop.

So camera selection comes down to how it will be used. If PAL frame rate output is a priority, better to stay with PAL spec equipment.

Another key issue with codecs is editing efficiency. MPeg2 HDV is much easier to edit vs. AVCHD h.264. There are software and hardware issues. h.264 HD needs at least a Core2 quad core and recent software upgrades. HDV can be smart encoded for cuts (zero generation loss) and requires a Core2 dual core or better.