I am a little confused here. I only have the standard batteries that came with the camera (those itsy bitsy sucky bricks) The only times I have used them have been in HDV mode...which as you all know, they last but like nothing minutes.

The other day I decided to play with the camera in DV mode and forgot to turn the camera off...an hour later I came back and I was amazed to see the camera still on and operating...am I missing something here? Was it just coincidence?

Oh...by the way, I swithced it to HDV and bam!...battery died

It takes a lot more silicon to encode HDV on the fly compared to DV. That requires more current.