HDD camera - yes or no?

Hi, the title says it all. I know this is the Final Cut PRO forum and most people here are pros so I expect the answer from you guys to be NO. But can somebody explain me why not? What are the disadvantages of HDD cams compared to tape cams. I know they take AVCHD and this is compressed but do you really loose so much quality with it? Or are there other issues?
Please try to answer in terms a relative newbie to video can understand. I'm reading up on these forums, on other websites, etc. but some things still highly confuse me.
If you want to know my goal : I'm a diver and recently took lot's of video footage with my small point and shoot Canon Ixus 850 (yes it can take video, quality is not great however). I'm thinking of doing much more of this in the future (and making diving movies to be sold to people who take the dive courses) so I'm looking to buy a decent camera. As a computer geek I'm much more attracted by the HDD based models. I also don't like the hassle with tapes... At the other hand, I want the quality to be as high as possible, but this doesn't mean it really needs to be the highest professional quality (like for National Geographic or so...). I have an iMac 2.8 and would be interested in spending time to learn FCS2.
As far as I can find, FCP 6.0.1 (and 6.0.2) supports the transfer of AVCHD and conversion into AIC. What's the advantage of working in AIC and doing all the editing there?
Thanks and sorry for the basic questions but as I said, lot's of things still confuse me, even after reading up a bit on this stuff!
Peter.

My biggest beef with hard drive recording isn't so much the quality but rather its physical robustness or rather lack of it. I have seen many professionals initially by the advantages of HDD recording only to switch back to tape due to corrupt data caused by a bump or nudge while recording. recording diving videos seems like it would be especially prone to these problems. I would stick with a traditional tape format like DV or if you have the funds record on to solid state media like the P2 cards.
Best regards,
David Finell

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Message was edited by: AppleMan1958

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HDD camera - yes or no?

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