following when shot in SD 4:3 mode?I'd love to hear from users who own both camcorders who are in a position to directly contrast the image/output quality obtained from the GL-2 & compare it to the output of the XH-A1 for each of the variants listed below.

1)GL-2 vs XH-A1 (when the latter is used to also shoot in SD 4:3 mode)

2)GL-2 vs the XH-A1 when the
a)Original/source footage is shot in 4:3 1080i mode and then
b)down-converted to SD.

My goal is to find out how much better the SD footage is when shot with the A1 as compared to the GL-2!

Is there a significant improvement in what one sees?Is it a straight forward matter of "bigger is better" due to the increased ccd size and the number of pixels?

Thanks,
Bruce

IMO in the sub $12,000 market I would go with the A1 over just about any camera... So far everything I have done is for SD and I have been very pleased with the results... It's a versatile camera as compared to it's competitors it leaves them in the dust...

Comparing the GL2 to the A1 is like comparing a hummer to a ford escort... Thought the escort will get you places the hummer can get to a few more places the escort can't quite get to...

Not to mention the fact that you can tweak the A1 in to oblivion with a little effort... It's more of manual camera and takes a little time to get use to... But once you learn the ends and outs of it it's sweet...

As far as shooting goes I would suggest shooting HD then down converting to SD in camera during capture... I have had better results in image quality this way versus shooting straight SD... The only reason that I would shoot in SD is if I needed to give the tapes to someone else... Then they could use their camera and capture the footage...

This is ONLY my two cents... Take it for what it's worth...