There are plenty of NLEs that can edit MPEG2 footage with DV or other footage just like there are plenty of sound editors like SoundForge, Audacity, etc. that can edit MP3s along with WAVs, but the fact remains that you are capturing in a lossy format, and then re-encoding to a second-gen lossy format, which I just don't understand why you would want to do that if you can easily buy a MiniDV-based camera for the same -- if not lower -- price. I'm not saying the multi-cam guys did anything wrong, I'm just making a point for the original poster who is looking for a cam, that you couldn't pay me to buy a cam that records in a lossy codec when I could get DV for the same price. However, this is just one man's opinion, so of course, take it with a huge grain of salt, but this one aspect of the conversation is basically undeniable. Now, for those die-hards out there, technically speaking, DV is lossy too, but there is no doubt that DV records at a significantly higher bitrates than those MPEG2 and MPEG4 cameras do and then some. And editing in a codec that does inter-frame grouped compression is much more problematic (and slow mind you) than editing using a codec like DV that using only intra-frame compression. One other point that might be interesting to find out is that I wouldn't be surprised one bit if those DVD and Hard-Drive cams record their audio in lossy format too (some sort of MPEG or AAC or AC3 format I bet) rather than true 16/48 PCM which is standard for DV. That is even true for the new HDV cams out there, which a lot of people don't realize -- my cheesy MiniDV-based camcorder records true 16-bit digital audio, but those new Sony HDV cams record in a lossy format.