Would you sell a XH-A1 to buy a panasonic lumix DH3?

[Panagiotis Raris]

agreed, plus some HDV cameras (HVX-200/A/B HMC-150 HPX-170 etc) have 4:2:2 color space, which is again much better than the XH A1 and DSLR 4:2:0 (although the XH A1 has 4:2:2 out of the component out).

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Panagiotis Raris

agreed, plus some HDV cameras (HVX-200/A/B HMC-150 HPX-170 etc) have 4:2:2 color space, which is again much better than the XH A1 and DSLR 4:2:0 (although the XH A1 has 4:2:2 out of the component out).

Well, such as the HVX200 are not HDV - Panasonic never signed up to the HDV spec - though they are 4:2:2. But such numbers are ratios, not absolute values. In (very!) simple terms, 4:2:2 means "half as much colour as luminance", 4:2:0 means "a quarter as much colour as luminance".

Now if I offer you half of the money in my left pocket, or a quarter the money in my right pocket, which would you choose? The first option may seem best at first sight - but what if you knew I had £1 in the left pocket, £10 in the right? Obviously 25% of £10 is much better than 50% of £1!

And the colour space numbers only refer to the recording spec (the container in my analogy above). They tell you nothing about the camera front end, how sharp etc that is.

Hence, even though an HVX200 does indeed have a (DVCProHD) 4:2:2 recording system, it gets substantially outperformed by such as an EX1, even though the latter is 4:2:0. Beware of simple numbers in the specs taken in isolation - and 4:2:2/4:2:0 are one of the main ones to be aware of.

[Richard Gooderick]

Wow!
The things you learn on this site. I never knew this. Very interesting and very helpful. Thanks.

[Glen Vandermolen]

Short answer - YES!

Long answer - Get out of tape based acquisition. You'll never look back. The XH-A1 was a very good camera, for its time. That time has passed.
If you don't want a DSLR, there are other true video cameras that shoot on card based formats. There's a reason there aren't any new design HDV cameras being released.