Our team recently invested in a Canon HV30. Its predecessor, the HV20 had been touted as one of the best cameras around for "second camera" status on some TV shows. The HV30 follows up with a few tweaks but is basically the same.
I know that you're not looking for a tape-based camera (this uses MiniDV) and I mulled over the same decision when I went to buy my own HV30 a few months before the team. Ultimately I came to this decision because of a few reasons but mainly because cameras that record onto harddrives or cards often compress their video which leads to lower quality. If you plan to do any good keying from a green/blue screen its recommended you start out with video that's as "pure" as possible. Due to this fact alone I decided against harddrive/card systems.
In addition, a student on our team had a Canon harddrive camera last year and it took many painstaking hours to get her horribly encoded file format into a format that Final Cut Pro would understand. If you do go for one of these cameras be *absolutely certain* that FCP will accept the file format. If not, you're going to be scouring the web for free conversion programs PC or Mac, trying everything under the sun for hours at a time to get it to work. Ultimately, its not worth it. Tape cameras hook up to your Mac and they work. Period.
The HV30 also shoots in 24p, 30p, and 60i. Its not HD though, its HDV so be aware you'll pay $$$ for full HD. It has an external audio jack with onboard audio leveling controls with the touch of a joystick. It also has manual focus controls (for those ever important rack focus shots), manual white balance, etc. Overall, a good buy for ~$800!
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-VIXIA-HV...23498&sr =8-2
ASPCA would be happy to know you are petting your watchdog rather than kicking it. - Ether [more] 
08-10-2009, 13:35
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