"-Analog pass through (dunno if later sony models have this, the early "inexpensive" ones did not) "
Yes, that feature was added when the TVR350 hit the market.
But to clarify my main reason for having gone with the Sony (besides reliability and fatures I wanted). It was that the Digital8 format ensured my libray of analog8 "home movies" weren't rendered useless. While still alowing me to make the leap from analog to digital I at least remained capable of playing the old tapes as well as being able to creat DVD's from them with no extra hardware. If I did not have those analog8 tapes to contend with I probably would have gone with Mini DV. Panasonic or Sony probably would have been my first choices mainly due to my experiences with them for thier product quality and reliability. I've never owned a Canon camera (just printers) so I couldn't say anything bad about them.
Authoring software is a whole nother topic. I'd heard good and bad things about the Sony provided software but I'm going to try out ULead or TMPG's software first. It was also recommended to me that a quality HDD with an 8mb buffer would help cut down on covnersion problems and errors trmendously. I'll find out as my HDD is older and has only a 2mb buffer.s
