At last, I finally had a hands-on with this camera. It was really nice, and the tight depth of field I managed to get from the stock lens was amazing. A few questions:

While shooting, can you monitor the video through the HDMI connector? Can it playback recorded video the same way?

The cam was in 17mbps. When I switched it to 24mbps, a warning came up, saying something like "You cannot record 24mbps to AVCHD card (disc?)," or something like that. Huh?

This would make a nice b-cam or used for special "artsy" shallow depth of field shots. As long as I don't need audio.

At last, I finally had a hands-on with this camera. It was really nice, and the tight depth of field I managed to get from the stock lens was amazing. A few questions:

While shooting, can you monitor the video through the HDMI connector? Can it playback recorded video the same way?

The cam was in 17mbps. When I switched it to 24mbps, a warning came up, saying something like "You cannot record 24mbps to AVCHD card (disc?)," or something like that. Huh?

This would make a nice b-cam or used for special "artsy" shallow depth of field shots. As long as I don't need audio.

The max AVCHD data rate is 17Mbps.

The max AVCHD data rate is 17Mbps.

What?!! It can shoot in 24mbps, but you can only record 17mbps? That makes no sense at all.

Sorry, of course the camcorder can shoot and record in 24Mbps, but you cannot make an AVCHD disc at greater than 17Mbps.

Yes you can use an HDMI external monitor for shooting and playback - but it disables the viewfinder :-(

Thanks for the info, guys, but i have to ask a stupid question - what is an AVCHD disc?

And as far as the monitor, I was thinking of a 5 - 7" camera mounted monitor, so if it disables the cam's own monitors, I can live with that. The monitors on the VG10 are high rez and all, but to my 50 yr. old eyes, they're still kinda small.

Sony has a new monitor designed for the Alpha series SLR/SLT's -

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-video-industry-news/489959-sony-monitor-alpha-slt-dslrs.html

AVCHD disc is burning high definition (AVCHD) onto a regular DVD disc.

AVCHD disc is burning high definition (AVCHD) onto a regular DVD disc.

It amounts to burning Blu Ray onto a DVD, but the data rate is limited by the DVD disk technology.
You can actually burn the file at a higher data rate, but it will not play back properly.
17mbs is about the most you can get away with.

A trivia point: FOX wanted a less costly way to distribute short HD programs. So they insisted that HD content be able to be written on special quality 9GB DVDs that could spin fast enough for about 25Mbps.

Ordinary DVDs start to wobble at speeds needed to go above 18Mbps.

Why did home brew AVCHD discs not play on some BD players?

FOX required a copyright bit be set, and the BD players were looking for this bit.

So...
If you want to burn video to a DVD, do you have to shoot it at 17Mbps?

Only if you want to burn a DVD directly from the camera. If you are going to edit, you can shoot at 24.

Well, i went ahead and bought the VG10. It's so different than the cameras I'm used to. It's going to be a learning experience!