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Hello. I have been making short movies all my life. Went to Pittsburgh filmmakers and shot a couple 3 min long films in 16mm. In 2007 I bought a canon hv20. It's a hdv camcorder that takes the old, small tapes. Anyway, here's my thoughts. The 16mm film I did (the one that turned out well and not grossly overexposed) looked phenomenal to my eyes. I''d/I've never done anything else that looked that good. It was done on Kodak 16mm color neg 200t. I used a bolex from school with ordinary, non zoom lenses. So, ff to 2007. When I took a few videos with hv20, I was floored by the quality. I compared it to the 16mm film I did. The 16mm still looked better, and handled colors better. However, with the hv20, after tinkering with it a while , I've gotten COMPLETELY mixed results. I've learned that if you're shooting on video, everything has to be PERFECT to get the same quality every time. It's almost as if the stars have to be right to remain consistent. I mean, I have lit it well and it looks like crap, and I've lit it poorly and it looks great. Vice-versa. I just got back some 16mm b and w reversal I shot with a bolex. Looks good. however, after comparing it to a few of my "good days" footage with the hv20 (b&w in post), the hv20 clearly stands out. So now I'm shaking my head, confused more than ever. The HDV tapes are exceedingly cheaper than film and do produce excellent image quality... if everything is done absolutely perfect every time. How do I do this? I just don't know what I'm doing wrong to get some things looks great and some things that look like a 1980s videocam.