Advice Needed: Mac-based Video Workflow

Greetings all,
My congregation is thinking of purchasing an iMac to use to produce a video of each Sunday's message. I use a MacBook Pro and am a strong proponent of getting a Mac for this purpose. I'm in charge of researching the purchase. So, I'm posting here to bounce some ideas off everyone and see if anyone has any experience that could help me.
So, typically a Sunday message lasts 15-20 minutes. We're looking for a camera that shoots in HD and stores the video as editable files on the camera. Then, as soon as the message is done, we'll have our video operator transfer the video files to the iMac, add some titles, and then export it in HD for posting to Vimeo. We want to find a workflow that goes quickly so the operator doesn't have to stay around forever waiting for the export process.
As far as I know, that rules out AVCHD codec with iMovie, right? I understand it requires a lengthy decompression time, so that even a real-time capture of HDV would be faster!
So, my questions are twofold:
1) Does anyone know a camera that records HD files that could be transferred very quickly into iMovie?
and
2) Is a new iMac fast enough to export a 15-20 minute HD movie in 15-30 minutes?
Thanks so much!

Well, we want to go to HD. I'm well versed in the normal process of video making. I use a Canon HV20. I've just been asked to make the entire workflow happen in a much shorter time, since we have to have it complete before folks leave from the church. I was hoping we could add titles and the like in iMovie and go to HD, but that doesn't seem like a feasible option in the time window I have. I think I'm leaning toward getting a Sanyo Xacti HD1010 that records as MPEG files in the H.264 codec. Then we can just forgo the titling and simply place a raw file up to Vimeo and still have it be HD.
The only thing I'm worried about now is staying under the 1 GB file limit with native shooting on a camera like that. You can shoot 1280×720 video on that camera at 9 mbits/sec, but I think for a Sunday sermon crossing the 15-16 minute threshold, we'd be over the 1 GB file limit that Vimeo and YouTube have. Yeesh. It seems there's not "fast" way to get HD video online. It takes a little bit more time, but that's to be expected with the higher quality. It doesn't bother me for my home movies!

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