I've been searching for days on end trying to find the best HD camera for myself. I want to make short home movies- 5-10 minutes, and burn them in HD on a standard DVD to play on blueray. Toast10 on mac supports that according to the box. I'm not into youtube or trying to make an indie film. Just action stuff like off-road, helicopter flying, etc.

I'm deploying on a navy ship and fly helicopters- lots of my shots require long zoom and and a steady hand. So I was looking at the Canon HF200 with it's 15x zoom and optical stabilization. But it's not a pocket sized camera.

I'd thinking it might be better to forgo some zoom for a more pocket sized camera that can be stored in my flight suit leg pocket, or taken on hikes, offroad trips, etc.

Looked at the flip HP mino- but I'm worried about its no zoom and shakiness.

Sanyo just came out with a new xacti VX1-ca9 that is an HD waterproof (to 5 feet) model that might work great for me- takes SD cards, can take it on boat, beach, snorkeling, off-road, and has 5x optical zoom.

Also looked at the sony webbie HD, which was nice for the touch screen, but no stabilization and reviews say the flip does better.

Or get both- a flip and a canon with high zoom?

I'm lost. Right now I'm leaning towards the xacti ca9, but it's not available in the US yet- only on ebay from hong kong. I'm sure it'll be out soon through.

Any suggestions?

If there's a perfect camera that doesn't work with mac, I also have windows vista that I can load through bootcamp, but I'd like to avoid that.

deployed in hawaii... about as good as it gets!!

once you get below the hf11-sized form factor, there are typically some big tradeoffs, in terms of zoom capability and picture quality... you'll take a real beating in picture quality with those tiny camcorders.

it might be worth waiting for that sanyo, they are doing some things with their camcorders that nobody else is doing... i wonder what the resolution for that camcorder is?

Well I went to best buy to check out the Flips. They were bigger than I thought. The little sony webbie was on sale for $149 and it's 1080i! Almost got it, but then I saw the HF20, and it was half the size I though it would be. Love at first sight. The optical stabilization sold me right away. Actually has a usable 15x zoom. It was $899 so I walked away to research. It's on B&H as well as amazon for $799, so I ordered it up. Can't wait to try it out. I'll get the waterproof case soon too.

Well I went to best buy to check out the Flips. They were bigger than I thought. The little sony webbie was on sale for $149 and it's 1080i! Almost got it, but then I saw the HF20, and it was half the size I though it would be. Love at first sight. The optical stabilization sold me right away. Actually has a usable 15x zoom. It was $899 so I walked away to research. It's on B&H as well as amazon for $799, so I ordered it up. Can't wait to try it out. I'll get the waterproof case soon too.

http://www.*****************/trafficreport/img/3721/k08t1221bbuq/gdsmile.gif I hope you'll love it.