When is Interlaced not Interlaced?

No, it's not a problem. I was just curious about the terminology.

The long retired camera in question is a Canon HV20 shooting HDV (1440x1080 50i) on mini-DV tape. It also shoots PsF but after a brief test I reverted to 50i.

I bought it in 2008 and mentioned it on this forum (actually the legacy FCP forum) and Tom immediately asked why I hadn't got a card based FHD camera instead. The simple answer was that card based cameras were in their infancy and I hadn't even considered one. Which brings me to another point . . .

Over the last few years I have occasionally sounded off about how my Sony a58 (DSLR) and Panasonic FZ300 (Superzoom/Bridge) produce very inferior (1080p) results to my Panasonic SD800 camcorder.

Back in 2008 I was blown away with the results of my Canon HV20 but now I realise that the image sharpness I am

getting from the above denigrated cameras is at least as good if not better than the HV20.

It looks as though it's not a matter of them being bad but my SD800 being quite exceptional.

Several forum contributors recently commented that absolute sharpness is not everything and I must admit that the images from the HV20 have a more "homelier" feel than the clinically sharp resolving power of the SD800 which produces 1080p images almost indistinguishable from 4K.