Although the XL2 does not have as wide a view as a DVX100, wouldnt' the fact that you are shooting 16X9 pretty much negate the DVX100 advantage...of course I am comparing the letterboxed option on the DVX100 to the 16x9 feature on the XL2...any thoughts?

The dvx still has a significantly wider lens (32mm equiv.) than the xl2 in 16:9.(42mm equiv.).

Barry

At equivalent focal lengths, a DVX in "letterbox mode" and an XL2 in 16:9 mode will have identical fields of view. The DVX also has much wider focal lengths, and the XL2 has more telephoto focal lengths, but when they're set at the same, the horizontal field of view is the same.

The XL2 chip does effectively the exact same thing that the DVX does when in "letterbox" mode. The difference is that the XL2 has a lot more pixels crammed into the 16:9-shaped patch, so it can deliver full resolution when in that cropped/letterboxed section of the CCD.

with the xl-1 wide angle lens, you'd have just as depth of field.

Don't know quite what you meant.

The XL1 and the DVX, at equivalent focal lengths, will have identical depth of field. Technically the DVX will be just a tiny bit shallower because it can resolve pixels at higher resolution than the XL1, but it's a tiny difference not even worth talking about.

The DVX in "letterbox" or "squeeze" mode will exhibit identical depth of field as the XL2 in 16:9 mode, as long as the focal length of the lens is the same. The XL2 will be capable of much, much shallower DOF if you zoom in to the long end of its lens.

In 4:3 mode, the DVX will have significantly shallower DOF than the XL2, at equivalent fields of view. The XL2 could still overcome that by zooming in deep into its zoom range, but it may be difficult to achieve useful framing when zooming in that far.