I have a Canon HG20.
I had a DVD Canon camcorder and got rid of it only after 1 year of use. The DVD spinning could be heard in a lot of my videos and the quality of the colour was less then expected.
The HDD HG20 is mind-blowing!!!! It has all the features of the canon DVD camcorder, but the quality if you hook it up onto a plasma or LCD TV is unbelievably good!!
The only downside, there is a "Type C" HDMI port on the camcorder. You need to spend an extra $40 to get a Type C to Type A HDMI convertor. Bit of a pain...I expected this to be included in the Canon package.
Oh, its also got a remote control too. VERY useful for a railfan point of view. Especially if you have the SLR camera around your neck. The camcorder can be up to 18ft away and it will recognise the remote.