I am looking for a replacement that uses tape and 3 ccd and good quality. An onboard light would be nice too

I have been using the panasonic dv-953 for a while now and i really want to shoot in widescreen. However, I want high quality picture, dv tape format, good night time shooting(the 953 is terrible at this) possibly an onboard light, and a small size. I would consider Hi Def if the technology is there but im not yet convinced.

You're right about hiDef. For low light it simply isn't there. The Panasonic GS80 is highly rated. Alas, it doesn't come with an on board video light. Most don't these days. But it does come with a shoe to put a video light on. I recommend LEDs much brighter. A good choice is [url=http://www.camerabright.com/product.htm=Camera Bright LED video lights[/url]. Screws into your tripod hole and has it's own independent power source. 5 LCDs make for a brilliantly luminated subject without being overly harsh.

Canon makes a good line in the ZR850. Very affordable. Now I know you're going to say "not 3CCD." But the development and improvement of 1CCD and CMOS technology has advanced to the point where a 3CCD camera doesn't have as much an advantage as it used to. The gap has closed to near nothing.

Jeff.
You might want to consider the Panasonic GS320, it produces a very high video quality in the midrange category of camcorders. The GS320 is a 3-CCD miniDV tape cam with wide screen recording. Its not the best in low light, nor does it have a built-in light. Built in cam lights cuts your run time to less than half and are useless for illumination anyway, James is correct with being better off with an external mount LED video light. In additon, James is also correct about digital single CCD chips giving a 3-CCD chip system a good run for the money. However, in the midrange miniDV cam category, large single CCD chip systems have been just about eliminated.

The GS320 miniDV will give you an excellent video quality for large screen viewing without going HD. The GS320 is both PC and Mac compatible, and it also records without MPEG compression for best editing quality and DVD copies.

Another excellent quality miniDV cam to consider is the Sony HC96 miniDV cam which includes cool animation effects with time lapse features. The HC96 should be better in low light than the GS320 and offers the largest single CCD chip in a miniDV cam for palm corders.

The Canon ZR line is a little better in low light and gives you some nice manual features, but its an entry level camcorder. The ZR line is not recommended for large screen viewing or making high quality DVDs.

If you want the best of all worlds, high quality SD, high quality HD, wide screen, manual controls, external mic options, 24p recording, miniDV tape recording, and much much more, than I suggest the Canon HV20.

Happy Shopping!

To Piero you listen, wise his he! (in my best Yoda impression)

thanks everyone for your responses. IS my camrera just dated? DO you think the new panasonic will give off a better picture? I have been podering the canon hv20 and I think I may have decided tog o with that camera now but Im not familiar with 24p/ What the heck is that exactly. Will it work with Premiere?

Jeff.
"p" is really fps (frames per second). 24fps is the motion film camera frame rate standard. This frame rate gives more of a movie look than an artificial video look at 30fps. Its the new feature many videographers have been waiting for in a consumer cam, and its being used more everyday in the broadcast television industry.

Editing programs may convert 24p to 30fps for DVD, but it does not matter. Its how the footage was originally shot that will create the overall look in the end results. In this case, 30fps for DVD disc only represents the playback frame rate for DVD players.

The Panasonic PV DV953 is a good cam with some great features. I say that if you are going to upgrade, get the HV20 to make a big difference. The Panasonic PV DV953 is still worth keeping, its better than many consumer cams in the present market place.

Happy Shopping!

Well here's the thing about the HV20. It's HD. I just don't think it's ready for the mainstream consumer because of market saturation of HD. As such, it's purely the domain of professionals and early adopters who don't mind investing a good deal of cash to be the first ones to use the latest. That's changing mind you. As we head towards 2009 (the year that Uncle Sam has mandated for moving television broadcast into the HD spectrum), prices have dropped dramatically this year on HD televisions (from $8K to just over $1K), but let's not forget that you'd also need an HD capable editing software, HD DVD burner, HD dvd player, etc. And you need to unlearn and relearn how to shoot HD. And how many friends and family are actually investing in HD at the moment? Sharing HD DVDs with them will be a problem.

And in buying an HD camera, you have to also upgrade to an HDTV, HD DVD player, HD DVD burner and use expensive HD DVD media. And since there's yet another petty and ridiculous format war going on between HD DVD and Blue Ray, which one do you get? Fortunately, we're starting to see multi format players coming out. So burners hopefully will come down in price soon.

All this, and the fact that HD is still the purvue of the early adopter has prices very expensive and it all adds up. So, for at least the next 6 months to a year, HD is still not ready for prime time. But it won't be for long.

But it sure does look pretty when it's all working right.