I'm trying to find a camera in the < $1000 range. Right now I've narrowed it down to the Sony HC90 and Panasonice PV-GS250....

Does anyone have any advice??

I would go for the PV-GS250, it has three chips and owning one myself, it's a good camera. Although I regretted just not saving up more money and buying a AGDVX-100a, but that's just me.

Bruce,

I hear filming in low light is a big issue with the PV-GS250....do you find it problematic with your camera?

Well I personally don't have a problem with the low light because I light most of my shots ( be it day or night) and then modify it in post. Sony is known for it's excellence in low light, but I still would suggest the pv-gs250 for it's 3ccd technology.

Panasonic all the way!!!!

I just purchased a HC90
It gives excellent results particularly if you manually white balance instead of use auto.
Auto tends to wash out the colours in most cameras.
Sharpness is as good as broadcast video to me except does not handle extreme contrast as well as a $4000 camera but better than all the cheapies.
You can customise your touch screen to quickly change and settings.
The best feature is you can touch any area of the LCD viewfinder where you want to exactly focus, white bal or expose on!
3mp Still pics on memory stick look as good as a still camera and not like a frozen frame on a cheaper camera.

I used a camera similar to the HC90 when I was shooting in Tanzania. It served me well. I would recommend it.

A quick comparison shows that the GS250 is much better.

1. HC90 gets 325.87 lines of horizontal resolution at its best, with 245.94 lines of vertical resolution in 4:3. GS250 gets 524.1 horizontal lines of resolution and 219.9 vertical lines of resolution. The 16:9 showed a similar discrepancy in resolution. Tests run by Camcorderinfo.com

2. GS250 has manual control over shutter speed, aperture readings while the HC90 doesn't.

3. LCD focus thing is going to bother you when you keep touching your camera and jarring your image.

However, low light is slightly better on the HC90 because it has a 1/3 inch CCD. However, the GS250 is still one of the better cams in the department of low light for this price range.

In the end, I'd go for the GS250. Also if you can spend a little about $1000, go for the GS400. I have it and it blows all cams up to $2000 out of the water. In fact, it's comparable to the GL2 in video quality.

Peace,
Rio