Originally Posted by Gaybucks

At the moment, surfers (except the few with fiber to the house) don't have the bandwidth to download HD content, and Youtube and the others aren't providing it.

So getting HD doesn't matter except for content you're planning on keeping and reusing or rereleasing some years down the road.

If you're going for true HD, there isn't a solution that provides it for under about $5500; all of the cameras in the 2500 and under are actually HDV, which is a hybrid format that is between standard def (SD or DV) and HD in quality. True HD cannot be recorded on any DV tape; the maximum data rate is 25Mbits/sec, and true HD is 100Mbits/sec.

On DV tapes, check online suppliers. A couple that we buy from are tapestockonline.com and cassettehouse.com. We have used the mid-grade Panasonics that are about $3.50 each for more than 5 years and have never yet had a bad tape, or a tape we couldn't read from 4+ years after it was recorded.

DON'T switch the type of tape you use, even within the same manufacturer; different tape formulations use different lubricants, and mixing lubricants will almost immediately gunk up your heads. If you're lucky, you can run a cleaning cassette for a few seconds and clean up the gunk. If not, it's off to the shop for a cleaning.