Thankyou very much for your response.
Fantastic - 20 minute projects would be fine for us. Am I right in assuming that the workflow you described is using a normal DVD burner (ie. non-BD)? I ask as that is what I had gleaned from reading this and other forums, but have received conflicting information on the high street where they indicated that a HD burner would be required (and didn't know of any!)
You've given me some food for thought re: type of camcorder to choose. I had initially been looking at HDV as I do like the idea of tape archives. However, I did read elsewhere that importing HDV to XP is more problematic than with Vista. I have a very high spec notebook I use for graphic/video work, but was a little concerned about this as we use XP Pro in our house (can't shift to Vista yet for some technical reasons involving compatibility of other products and educational courses). Am I correct in saying that the only option for XP and HDV is to import a whole tape at once?
Of the HDV options, I was leaning towards the Canon HV20 or HV30. Would you say the quality of the HDV tape cams is as good as the other format options?
On the HDD side I have been leaning towards the Sony range (the SR12 is tempting for the HDD size). For both the Sony cams and Canon HDV cams do these come with software that allow you to burn as m2t, mts or m2ts? If not, what software is recommended for this process?
Sorry for all the questions - I need to buy soon to ensure delivery in time but obviously want to make the right choice.
