I thought I'd let my current two camcorders go head-to-head to see which had better image quality. It may not be clearly apparent in this video (read more below about encoding issues), but in my opinion, overall the Aiptek AHD200 easily wins.
The Canon wins on just two points: better dynamic range and opitcal zoom. In low light situations, the admittedly antiquated ZR60 is simply outperformed by the AHD200. In spite of the fact that the ZR60 has better optics, the AHD200 also beats it in terms of rendering detail.
However, the AHD200 isn't without its problems, colors are a bit oversaturated, the sound is in dismal mono, and the digital zoom leaves a lot to be desired.
By the way, the AHD200's footage may appear to lack smoothness here but that's because the computer which encoded and rendered this (Mac Mini PowerPC 1.42G, 512RAM) simply didn't have the raw power and juice to handle the 720p HD output of the AHD200. I wanted to encode everything on my Core2Duo PC, but there was no way I could transfer the footage from my firewire-only ZR60. Thus I was forced to use iMovie on my ancient PowerPC Mac Mini.
In conclusion, the AHD200's undisputed win shouldn't be used as an indictment against the MiniDV format. MiniDV is still viable and is probably superior to the AHD200 and it's kind if used in a more modern camcorder. The ZR60 wasn't any great shakes when it came out six years ago, so much so today. In the end, it wasn't even a fair fight, but these are my only two camcorders and I had time on my hands during the Holiday Season, so what you gonna do about it, he he.
What this does prove is that inexpensive flash-based camcorders like the AHD200 have come a long way from their humble webcam origins to become a very viable choice for the consumer looking for a decent camcorder.