You won't find a hard-disk or card based AVCHD or HDV format camcorder that is better in low light than the HV20. Yet. Unless you want to spend several thousand on an HVX or the Sony EX. Also AVCHD, even the new higher-bitrate implementation, still lags WAY behind HDV in image quality (and HDV kinda sucks to begin with). I think within a couple of years it will be better than HDV but the real-time capture implementation has a long way to go.
People's experiences editing with AVCHD vary widely, but if you have a way to convert it to an intraframe codec your life will be easier. I am dying to switch to a tapeless camera, but there isn't one yet that tempts me. I use an HV20 as my everyday (and use lots of other cams of all types in connection with work), and despite the inconvenience of tape (and since I shoot 24p the inconvenience of removing pulldown on everything before editing) it's still worth the bother for its image quality and low light capability. You could also look into a portable hard drive based capture system for your HV20 instead of spending probably close to the same amount for an inferior camera - you'd get the HV20's quality and get to go tapeless. Can't vouch for this model, but I know that people use it: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/553295-REG/Focus_Enhancements_ASYF_1314_01LF_FS_4_HD_Portable_DTE.html#specifications Brook _______________________________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
