Since the GY-HD100 shoots in the HDV format, can I shoot to tape and stay away from purchasing some of those expensive propritary external drives? I plan on using DVRack for the stationary shoots which has a built-in virtual DVR that allows recordings to any hardrive (internal laptop/external firewire) but can the signal travel through a conventional firewire cable? I assuming the answer is yes and that those propritary drives will only be needed for the HVX200 because of the dvcpro50/100 Mb streams that can't be recorded to tape. Am I in the ballpark?

Yes you are in the ballpark. Yes you can record directly to tape -- in fact, that's pretty much the whole point of HDV, is to record to that tape. And yes the firewire will work -- HDV Rack is already available. So, basically, yes to everything you asked.

Wow, didn't know about HDV Rack version. Thanks a bunch:)>