upgrading need advice

[kauseway]

Hi everyone,
I have a JVC GZ-MG30U. I bought it in a pinch before the birth of our baby. It seems to be a nice camera except I found that I cant edit the image with anything but JVC software that came with it. I tried to download a converter but it only converts the sound with no image. I am sure there is a way but I am a bit frustrated as I am no expert.

I am thinking about getting a new camera and here is my thoughts:
1) High Definition
2) 16 x 9 recording so I can view it on my 16 x 9 screen
3) Hard drive
4) Recording format that I can use any software to edit it?

Any ideas or recommendations? I am really unfamiliar with the editing part but have seen apples movie editor at the store and want to be able to easily clip images and paste and add a sound track, so related software would be helpful to! Thanks

[Lysander]

Well, the camera that most closely matches all your criteria is the Sony HDR-SR1 which is a hard drive, HD camcorder. However it uses AVCHD which is not *yet* supported by most editing applications. (Same situation HDV was in for its first 6 months of existance.)

IF you're willing to forgo the camera having a hard drive then getting an HDV camcorder will meet your other criteria as HDV is well supported (on Macs, nothings well supported on windows. :-)

So, if you go with a HDV camera, you can edit in iMovie, final cut pro, etc. right now with no problems.

If you go with the Sony HDR-SR1 you're waiting for Apple to give it full support (Something I'm expecting/ hoping for in the next release of iMovie which will come in January)

In the interim you can shoot SD footage and edit it in imovie using the converter from Squared5 with the SR1. Which is what I'm doing. I don't mind waiting until next year to edit and use HD -- having a hard drive based camcorder was the big criteria for me.

But if easy editing in HD is your bigger criteria, and you don't want to wait, you want to get an HDV camcorder.