I'll try to answer some of your questions. And some of your questions evoke other questions.

1) The SV-AV100 is near the quality of this 580 line bullet camera. At 6Mbps and 525 lines, it's considered "standard" DVD quality. The newer SDR-S100 is capable of one good step up in video quality. That said, the SV-AV100 is pretty damn good.

2) I'm confused by your question concerning . . . "does this cameras download capability alone make it worth purchasing?" The SV-AV100 is USB 1.1 (12 Mbps), while the SDR-S100 is true USB 2.0 (480 Mbps). After the first time, I never downloaded video directly from my SV-AV100. I used an inexpensive USB 2.0 card reader. The SDR-S100 is as fast as a USB 2.0 card reader, so I download directly from it. I do most of my editing with Womble Video Wizard ( www.womble.com ).

3) I also have a Panasonic GS400 MiniDV 3CCD camcorder. As with any tape camera, downloading is in real time (ex: 30 minutes of video takes 30 minutes to download). Any SD camera downloads at about 20 times real time (ex: 30 minutes of video takes about 1.5 minutes to download). The Wolverine is not quite as fast as a USB 2.0 card reader and a computer, but it's way faster than plain USB 1.1. When connected to a PC, the Wolverine is true USB 2.0 and quite fast.

4) I think you answered the storage problem in another thread with a Wolverine 100GB FlashPac.

5) I suggest the Wolverine, a USB 2.0 card reader for when you're at your computer and Womble Video Wizard. I also like Nero Video Express 4 for DVD authoring. I also bought an extra battery from www.batterybarn.com for both my old SV-AV100 and my new SDR-S100.

Bye.

PS. The guy who bought my SV-AV100 is a motorcycle racer who plans to use it with that Sony bullet camera as a helmet camera and "wear" the SV-AV100 somewhere under his leathers.