What is the most affordable HD or HDV camera on the market?

Question

Is HDV worth the price gap from DV or mini DV and is HD worth the price jump from HDV?

Answer 1

I'd say:

Canon HV20 or HV30

Sony HDR-HC7 or HC9

... and yes, I think the clarity is well worth the price differential... though it does not seem to be that big of a difference... after all, if you are comparing the standard def HDR-HC96 or PV-GS320 to any of these four hidef cameras, the fact that these HD cams have manual audio control and aproper 1/8" mic-in jack make the price differential well worth it... the additional clarity from hidef video is just gravy.

That said, it depends what you plan to film... it could be that Sony DCR-VX2100 or Panasonic DVX100B or Canon GL2 or XL2 are part of the mix - and they are a lot more than the 4 hidef cams indicated...

If you are asking about internal hard drive (HDD) based camcorders being worth the price - I would say no. Compressed MPEG2 video for standard def and AVCHD for hidef compress way too much - and less compressed DV and HDV on miniDV tape is still providing the best available video quality. The only hard drive worth using at the moment is an external firewire connected unit from Firestore. And it uses miniDV based cams...