Read the press release at JVC Launches Cost-Effective GY-HM710U Camcorder at DVInfo.net (http://www.dvinfo.net/news/jvc-launches-cost-effective-gy-hm710u-camcorder.html)

Hopefully street price will be closer to $5500. That would be closer to the GYHD 100/110 HDV cameras which seemed to be pretty popular. I've rented the 700 a couple years ago and it produced an excellent image.

Is this not a relaunched HM700?. It looks to be the same with the addition of being able to record SD direct rather than down-converting on output.

According to the chart on there website it has a DV encoder but doesn't have a dv recording mode. You also lose the 720p recording mode. It also looks like you can't record PAL.

ProHD Camcorder Differences (http://pro.jvc.com/pro/attributes/HDTV/desc/prohd_differences_710.html)