it's been a year or more since the topic of camcorders and video cameras have been discussed on the hallowed pages of archinect. So what is the word on the street about the latest and greatest DV cameras?

Just in looking at cnet & pcmag my head starts to melt down with all the different options between media and compression formats - and after years in the trenches of hollywood I thought I knew a little about cinematography and video. Maybe I should just give a shout out to friends still in the grasp of the entertainment industry - but they use pro-gear that is way beyond my needs or budgets. All I want is good optics, a good image quality, good sound, and enough control to keep my films off of america's funniest home videos. Is that so wrong to aspire to for under the one G that the tech 'experts' seem to want me to spend?

Do you really need HD?
Does 1080p matter?
Is a 3 ccd camera that much better?
HD, miniDV or ?
Why do video cameras have flashes?
Can somebody translate a 6mm-60mm lens into 35mm equivalents?


I got the firewire, I got the cinematic eye and I even got the editing skillz- so all I need is a camera!