Which camera to get for Final Cut Express 3.5HD/ upgrade to FCE 4?

Hello everyone!
I know this has been discussed frequently, but i am sort of looking for a costum made solution for me
Following situation: Macbook, 2.16Ghz, 2GB Ram, 320GB HDD @ 5400rpm.
I am running 10.5.3, have Final Cut Express 3.5 installed and am used to work in it,
mainly for editing video files not coming from a camcorder.
I have some experience in SD miniDV recording/editing though.
NOW I was thinking of getting a new camcorder in the 1500$ max range.
I want to edit video files, sometimes burn DVDs, at other times only to have them on the mac.
What i like about some of these new HD consumer models they can record AVCHD and mpeg2 SD in DVD quality. That should allow me to record in mpeg2 and have less hassle with importing/converting into Final Cut Express 3.5 if lower quality is fine (which it is as of now)
At the same time I could upgrade to Final Cut Express 4 and import the AVCHD files, but I still taken aback from how time and resource consuming it is. Plus it does not allow full HD 1920x1080 in FCE 4 does it?
So I was looking at the Sony HDR SR11 as a nice camcorder. Seen it live, seems decent.
On the other hand, is a camera which records in HDV a better solution for me?
I could keep Final Cut 3.5, no need to upgrade right?
Is it less hassle to transfer files to the mac and edit them?
I am very unsure which way to go right now...

Hi Flore
This a huge debate. There are very few advantages to the new AVCHD camera's and the vgery long list of negative aspects of AVCHD camera's outweighs any usefulness of them. They are designed for Grandad to pick up and shoot good quality pictures and not for editing.
I have posted below the wiki address for AVCHD, please read the page. It is very important you do read it. It explains in depth about AVCHD.
I feel the is no real place for the hard drive based AVCHD camera. There is a place for a mini-dv tape based camera.
Life will be very hard if you go the Hard-drive camera route. Stay with tape.
Tape is cheap, hardy and easy to move around. Hard drives not so!!!
Take some time to read the following wikipedia page...PLEASE READ THIS PAGE!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
You will see that AVCHD is not all the bee's knee's.
I personally hope it dies an extremly painful agonising drawnout death.
AVCHD has no place in the professional domain.
Justin... Durban.. South Africa

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