@brairden:
Honestly, I find tape based cameras slower when working at home - BUT I am also using a hoss machine (8 core, 8G ram, scratch disk on Sata drives). It can log and transfer at a rate at or (usually) faster then real time due to quantity of cores and available RAM. Now, when I L&T at work, it is slower then tape based media like HDV camcorders (machine I use at work is a slower dual core w/ 1/4 the amount of RAM I have at home plus the scratch drive is on a slower bus at work (usually firewire)).
@nancyspeed:
Honestly, the reviews have already been proven wrong (I'm not saying AVCHD is perfect, but it is quite spread out amongst the camera offerings). Tape based cameras are fewer and fewer in the consumer market and even in the prosumer and professional market they are moving to more mass storage technologies (keep in mind, some prosumer camcorders use AVCHD, but others use different digital technologies including HDV or hdcam, etc. - it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer).
I won't guarantee that AVCHD will be the end all / be all structure, but it is very convenient, highly compressed, can be migrated to an AVCHD DVD (although it requires a bluray player to play back an AVCHD DVD), etc. HD overall is here to stay. H.264 is here to stay (H.264 is a compression codec used in AVCHD video and video from a wide variety of other sources) - the biggest negative on AVCHD is it's bit rate cap.
You don't have to have bluray to appreciate the quality of HD video - although you may want to consider an HD tv
Even though I do have a bluray player - most of the HD video I watch (that is not TV broadcast) is thru a Mac Mini connected to my HDTV.
Choosing an HD camcorder - even if your final output is SD is not really a wrong choice. Consumer HD camcorders are significantly sharper then their SD counterparts and can yield a sharper image even when scaled from HD->SD (of course there are caveats, but that is another long discussion
). At least with an HD camcorder you have HD video, so you have the option of creating HD video and high quality SD video when scaled down.
If you all are more interested in learning about the digital formats - here's some more resources:
AVCHD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HDV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and an entertaining image that shows a scene captured at a single frame at a variety of video resolutions:
File:HD vs SD resolutions.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ps - I should note - although I do use a variety of gear, I do not claim to have a finger on the pulse of the industry (I have too many other things I enjoy working on
). I personally like digital formats that record to HDD or SDHC cards. I currently prefer AVCHD because it works well in MY workflow and I've found the imagery to be fantastic for my needs. There are different, some better, some worse technologies out there. Remember ultimately, you're the one using your gear and you need to determine what is best for your needs. If the camera gets you stunning imagery and you're thrilled with the output then don't fret the storage technology details.