a hard drive, but you have to add that as an accessory.

I held off buying the XL2 because I thought that it would soon be obsolete. Now, I'm not so sure. The HDV coming out of Sony will require a serious computer investment to work with, but you do get the HDV recording capability.

One the other hand, very few HD TV sets accomodate the 1080 specification. Most of them are 760 with a wide screen. The XL2 can accomodate these without the major investment that HDV requires. It looks like it will be quite a while before 1080 become commonplace.