I did my first shooting and I got a lot of wind or handling noise. I am confused by it because it seemed perfectly calm, etc.

I am happy to say that the camera looks about as good in 16:9 as 4:3, so I can keep it in 16:9.

At 1/30 of a second shutter the image gets blocky, which must have to do with the way the CCD integrates over time. 1/60 is the single best shutter speed.

My current feeling on the camera is that it has more sharpening than I would like which leads to video noise. I am just assuming they are doing sharpening, if they are they are making the camera much less like a pro camera. I wish there was a way to reduce this. I also think I see a CCD pattern in the image which is most noticable on pans over light scenes.

I also realised that lower noise is a benefit of a 3-CCD camera since the noise is averaged out.

I would love to have an hour with a 953 and Sony 330 because I would instantly know much more than I do now.

Try shooting with the Windshield on and see if it makes a substantial difference reducing the wind noise.

Would love to hear of your comparison when you do get a chance to try other brand camcorders.

You mean the windshield button? I am afraid to use it. How can such a feature work without physical foam? Since they did not explain it, I am afraid of what it does.

Also note that digital zoom does not work when Night Mode is on. This leads me to believe that Night Mode does 'binning' which means combining pixels into larger, more sensitive ones. This is done on CCD imagers for astronomy. In other words, a real feature. See http://www.ccddirect.com/online-store/scstore/binning.html

Is there a way to keep it from saying my time zone when it turns on? My time zone is N.Y. It turns out I don't much like NY, and I don't like seeing it each time I turn the camera on.

Ok, my friend gave me a tape shot on his 953. I compared it to the Xi on my 36 inch 16:9 tube HDTV. I compared indoor and outdoor footage. The Xi was sharper and had more contrast (not sure if the extra contrast is from a better lens or from the CCD and/or digital processing). The Panasonic had a little less noise visible in the shadows. It was hard to compare color, but I did not get the feeling that the Xi had worse color.

But I feel good now, because I was dissapointed in the Xi at first because I am so used to seeing only high end stuff (the last camera I used was a Panasonic HDC27P (720p).

But watching the Xi at 16:9 on my set blew away watching the 953 at 4:3 on my set. But my general feeling was that the Xi was equal or better either in 4:3 or 16:9 (well certainly better at 16:9).

The Nightmode is great! How else can you get well lit video without that kind of slow exposure? I mean, it allows you to shoot in low light. Not gimicky at all. In fact, this camera has tons of gimicks, but that is not one of them. The other digital effects are stupid and muddy up the UI.

Well, I finally had a chance to revisit the Night mode and tested it in indoor low light setting. While it did light up a lot more -- in comparison to any manual adjustments -- I found it rather useless since it created so much streaking with slightest movements. Again, this feature could be useful for shooting scenes with absolutely no movements, or for creating special effects.

I also got to try the Xi's various Digital Effects, and I wouldn't charcterize them as "gimmicky" at all. I found so many features that were quite useful. The most useful of them all was Black and White for both stills and taping. I found that the B&W still shots worked the best with human objects, as it rendered such smooth and dreamy skin tones. I also tried panoramic shots in B&W with great results.

I also had a lot of fun taping in "Art," "Box," "Ball" and other such digital effects.