Re:Progressive Scan (Score 1)

This is an inaccurate description of interlaced video.

Television is an interlaced system, each fram is made up of two fields. Essentially when displaying a frame the tv first draws all the odd lines, then draws all the even lines.

The reason for this is to create the effect of a higher frame rate. There are effectively 60 frames per second of interlaced NTSC video (or 50 of PAL). Each of these fields (upper or lower) contains half of the lines of image.

While interlaced video provides from spatial resolution, by sampling the whole CCD per frame, it looses temporial resolution by having effectively half the frame rate.

Camera wise, as a professional television editor, I would recommend a Panasonic AG-DVX100 (research progressive scan before making a decision) or the Sony PD170. The VX2100 is not much cheaper than the PD170, but lacks some of the features (esspecially audio wise) that the PD170 offers.

As a random plug, check out the 48 Hour Film I directed about a month ago: The Sceptre Of MacGuffin