Unfortunately, if you want optimum picture quality you still have to go with a mini-dv camera, as the hard drive based, dvd based, and memory card based camcorders still suffer from massive compression ratios's and very much sub standard picture quality. They also gain nothing in size or battery life (apart from the poorly reviewed but very handy Sanyo memory card only one). This is a shame, as their convenience value are greatly improved, what with not having to carry around tapes anymore. They also suffer from being less video editor software friendly, if thats something you have the time to play with.