Looking to replace a Sony HVRA1U

[Soprych]

I'm looking for a replacement for a Sony HVRA1U. I was considering a HDR-XR500v, is that a good choice? I need to be able to shoot HD, edit in Avid, manually set exposure and white balance. Will the HDR-XR500v work for me? What am I losing by scaling back to a cheaper camera?

[Skyman]

you are taking a very big jump backwards with that camera. Sure it has manual exposure and white balance, but not with nearly as much ease of access control or accuraccy as its brother.

[Soprych]

Any other suggestions? Different brand?

[Skyman]

I can't recommend anything that would save you significant amounts of money. all of the semi pro models are going to cost and from what it sounds like you will get very very frustrated by anything less than that. Sure many of the better consumer cameras offer manual white balance, some of them are even 3ccd, you can often manually focus them and you do have a limited ability to control your iris and shutter speed. The difference is in the way these controls are accessed. They are fiddly to set, don't really let you adjust them easily and don't quite have the range of their bigger brothers. It sounds to me like you should go visit some shops and have a play with them and see if you can "get away with them" or do you really need to pay extra. Either way look for Sony, Canon, Panasonic and JVC. Depending on your need for audio and zoom settings etc, you might also want to look at still cameras that do hd video like the canon eos 5DII and 7D, you will be sacrificing audio, but probably not that much compared to the consumer video cameras.