Before our recent family vacation, we toiled for almost two weeks over which one to get. We started by getting a JVC and a Sony at Sam's club and ended up taking both of them back in favor of better deals and more features available on the web. We just investigated several JVC hard drive camcorders before going back to the old faithful Sony brand and getting a DCR-SR220. We purchased it at Best Buy for $599.
My wife really liked the menus on the JVC's we looked at, but the image quality just wasn't as good as the Sony when played back. The JVC uses proprietary compression software, so it has to be converted to mpg or other format before use.
With the Sony we bought, we got a 60GB HD and it takes awesome stills, too. We also have a WAY COOL feature to take 3 seconds of slow motion. This came in very handy up at Overlander Falls near Mount Robson, BC, where we took some awesome clips of the salmon run at the falls.
The other feature that Sony has that the JVCs we looked at didn't, is the "night shot" IR mode. We enjoy using that feature to capture wildlife near our camp or wherever.
One note about HD vs. Disc vs. stick. The sticks are nice, but expensive for a big one. The Discs are a pain to tote around extras. The HD is the way to go, IMO. We took my laptop with us and dumped the HD nightly (not that we had too, because all of the video and stills (about 60-90 minutes per day for 6 days, plus about 50 stills per day) are still on the HD, and its nowhere near full. After having 8mm and Digital8 tape camcorders in the past, we LOVE THE HARD DRIVE CAMCORDER.
I hope this is helpful.
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i've just recently been through three kinds of camcorders...
