It's not mine.

They're going for about $4,600 on B&H and rebate is nice
www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/532558-REG/Sony_HVR_Z7U_HVR_Z7U_HDV_Camcorder.html

 pfft pricey, about £2,400 GBP? Just buy a 5D MKII

 Now THAT would be dumb.

You'll need an additional $5000 in good glass, audio gear, and external monitor to make it worth if if you're going the DSLR route.

I'd take this camera any.

 you know I only said that so you'd have a go haha

 DAMN I am seriously an easy troll success target when it comes to that stuff!

 yeah you really are haha

 one thing though, a DSLR such as the 60D is 30/60 fps whereas that is only 24p, eh? surely the DSLR would be better? no rant, serious question!

 This does 1080 24p, 30p, and 60i. You can extract clean slow-motion from 1080 60i mode. Ironically so many people don't know that their handycams can do that, but the problem is the program they use and how it extracts the 60 interlaced frames into progressive frames.

 If you wanted to go with pixel count then yes one frame of 1440 x 540 frame is not as high resolution as one 1280 x 720 frame.

Only other problem would be is with the program I use as I would have to transcode the H264 files from the 5D/7D. I can AMA link them to preview them, but editing them natively isn't smooth at all.

HDV however isn't a big deal you could go the tape capture route or just the CF card route. Regardless it's a quality camera.

 aah, okay cheers. which is better though, 60i or 60p? and can you put 60i through twixtor still?

 aah fair doos. does the h.264 files decrease the quality? i mean i use SVP and don't convert but render in 720p de interpolated

 The issue you're having is that you're not converting to the proper codec. Quality should not decrease when converting an already compressed codec into a more stable codec like ProRes. It's a trail and error basis using MPEGstreem, as you don't have log-and-transfer.

 okay, how do you convert then? i mean what software?

 SVP? Sony Vegas Pro? You def. don't need to convert with that program, just read the footage natively. I haven't had luck as I can't read them, with Vegas it seems like a tricky hit or miss, atm I'm a miss becaues I can't get it to work and it doesn't see the 5d material at all.

 aah okay and yeah svp is sony vegas pro. would i have to convert with final cut express or adobe prem?

 I have two ways: (note, I'm on a PC)

Because I have a Panasonic AVCHD 'AVCCam' camera, I can convert my AVCHD material very quickly using MPEG-to-P2 transfer program, which is veeery quick, and it converts to DVCPro HD in all formats (HD only), but it's for Panasonic Cameras only, and PC only, there are work-arounds for Macs. This allow metadata support. I do this all the time anytime I'm using 2 cameras and if one of them is a Panasonic P2 camera.

Or

I use TEMPGnc 4.0 XPress, it allows batch export lists when dealing with many formats. And BECAUSE I use Avid, I use DNxHD, which is the OTHER format in terms of Avid vs FCP debate. They're essentially the same damn thing.

When it comes to those on PC, using Pr or Vegas, there's no need to convert. But it sucks for them because if they do need to, like with round-tripping with AE and all, it's annoying because Pr and AE and Vegas don't have a native codec of their own, they can't 'own' DNx or ProRes as their native codec of choice. Native being like DNx with Avid and ProRes with FCP...

 Anything Apple product you will have to convert. Pr and Vegas don't need to convert.

 aah okay cheers