Great little machine

One of the distinguishing features of this camera is the mike jack, which is rare these days.

Combine this jack with a Rode Videomic and an L-bracket and you have a great little outfit that can get a lot of work done.

Another great thing is the Firewire (IEE 1394) socket.

I have just verified that you can use this socket to dump video directly to a computer running Adobe Premire Elements. Just hook up the wire, open the program, open the video capture screen, and click "Get Video" and you will see the counter run.

It's just like capturing from tape except you have saved yourself the capture step. This gives you the effect of a Firestore. This probably also means that this little machine and the HV20 will work with Firestore.

Another great socket is the AV out. You can use this to monitor your sound. I would use the AV cord to plug into an RCA to 1/8" stereo (male) adapter from radio shack, then a female to female coupler, then headphones (with volume control) or maybe a cheap headphone amplifier.

Bottom line: you have to spend a lot more to get more- the next bump is up to $1,000.