Hi all,

Been ages since posting in this forum.

I have been using my trusty panny mini dv cam for years and am thinking about treating myself to a pro / prosumer unit for xmas.

Budget around 1000 and my requirements are as follows:

Firewire connection to pc essential, am testing sony vegas at the moment and I really like it a lot !
Excellent low light capabilities with minimal grain and loss
Real film emulation / quality
Excellent configurable audio recording, must be able to handle loud live music
Weddings, Parties etc etc

I havent mentioned what format because im a bit out of touch with new technology, one of my hobbies is storm chasing and I will be filming lightning both day and night so the camera must be able to handle this. My mini dv cam has done a good job of this and someone has told me that HD would be useless because of the lower frame rate ? I thought it was still 25fps ? I cannot shoot lightning at a lower frame rate because even at 25 fps I miss out on many lightning strikes that get lost between frames. Should I be using some sort of progressive setting ?

Sorry for all the questions but im very out of date on all ths new tech.
I like the look of canon xl's and the jvc, pany etc in the same bracket.

Any advice would be great,

Cheers