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I am considering making my own films and I would like some advice as to the recent HD camcorders that are out and being released by the likes of Sony, JVC, Canon, etc. Would I be able to shoot 'high quality' with say a ?700 - ?1,000 HD camcorder ? Also since I am considering making my own films is there anything else I need to know or has anyone here embarked upon doing this ? Or has any models got any advice they can give ?

I just started shooting with a JVC GZ-HD3 High Def 3CCD camcorder which is very affordable.

I haven't really analysed the improvement yet over my existing standard def JVC hard disk camcorders.

Technically it has several improvements including a shoe for a light, and an audio input.

A lot of websites are including HD material but I'm unsure that a lot of UK customers download it, and standard def would seem to be still fine for a while. If you make DVD's then you're compressing a lot anyway and not gaining much benefit from High Def shooting. Also your editing time goes up with much larger file sizes.

But obviously it's the way things are going...

The main advantage I have seen in HD cameras is the improved imaging chips lens' etc.

Using a Z1 and shooting a mix of DV and HD I can see no benefit in the end product ie when it reaches DVD or web files. In fact DV has an advantage as already said in being easier to edit especially when it comes to colour correction as HD is difficult to monitor properly.

So my advise would be to use an HD camera in DV mode.