Great info for those interested to know about different media formats in HD cams:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/technology/07pogue.html?8dpc=&pagewanted=all

Thanks for the link. This article rightly criticizes the Sanyo HD2 and Canon TX1 hybrids which do produce rather disappointing HD video apart from their primary functions as still cameras, but the Panasonic SD1 is a full-featured 3CCD camcorder and isn't really marketed as a hybrid... it's sort of unfair to lump it in with the other two.

I wouldn't agree that the TX1's 640x480 mode is worse than standard def (it's quite good), and the SD1's video, though a little softer than the HV20's, can't be described as worse than standard def either.

"It looks like the love child of the Terminator and a bar of Ivory soap." - a pretty accurate description of the TX1. Though I thought Canon was going for more of a retro design, sort of trying to look like an 8mm movie camera.

"The Canon’s high-def video is a different story. It’s razor-sharp and the colors pop, but any movement, either by you or by your subject, results in a weird frame-skipping sort of jitter." - Not sure where he's coming from saying the TX1's 720p footage is "razor sharp"... on various forums, people generally agree that it's pretty soft for 720p and looks scaled up from 848x480. The "frame skipping" effect he's seeing is probably not a malfunction of the camera, but rather the coarseness of 30p vs. the 60i he's used to.

What these reviews don't talk about when it comes to comparing different recording media is the playback aspect of the HD video. Long term wise and for the purpose of distribution all the playback will have to be thru a DVD player to an HDTV. With HD DVD players occasionally hitting $199 mark these days the media these HD cam recorded on may be irrelavant. Eventually you don't playback the HD video from the cam itself or hard drive or miniDVD or miniDV tape or SD card, you insert the disk into one of those HD players that is hooked up an HDTV.

For long term storage tape and RAID hard drive are still the most reliable means, though they are not for playback.