It's a great camera that many smaller-budget productions have been using for a while now, but it does have it's challenges (most of which are related to the HDV codec itself and not so much the camera). NLE workflow can be challenging with the HDV codec, but support is fairly widespread at this point. That said, many folks are using intermediate codecs in order to get better real-time performance while editing (Cineform is one), but if you have an NLE that supports it and a hella-fast computer, you can edit HDV directly in some apps. Also, remember that HDV records audio in lossy format, so if you want the highest-quality audio possible, you'll have to use double-system sound (but most of us tapers would record audio seperately anyway, so not big deal, but it is kind of lame to think that my cheesy MiniDV cam had better audio than HDV cams). One other thing, I'm pretty sure that bad boy can do standard def widescreen using the DV codec to MiniDV tape, so don't overlook that, sometimes that'll be plenty good, it'll be widescreen (without croping/zooming), and it'll record audio in 16-bit when recording in SD mode I think. Not sure, but it might even be able to record in PAL too? Which can be a cool alternative to get 25 fps, which can be fairly easily converted to 24p standard def. HAVE FUN, LOOKS LIKE A GOOD TIME TO ME!