ORIGINAL: lungbuster12point06
Second your consumer sd camcorders CAN be used as decks with HD footage as it has already been written to the tape and therefore any camera capable of playback will transfer that footage in HD to your computer.
I'm not so sure about that. I film in HD with a Sony HDR-FX1 and my Sony mini-cam will not recognize the tape. I must use my HDR-FX1 when I transfer to the PC. I am able to hook up my mini cam TO my HDR-FX1 and I can transfer High Def footage to SD footage on the fly and save to a mini-dv tape in SD format on my mini-cam (in theory - haven't tried it yet though).
JIM