I've got a couple HDR-HC1 cameras, one from Japan and one from the US, and really like the video quality that comes out of 'em. As long as the scene is well-lit, the results are good.
Annoyingly using CapDVHS I could only capture HDV video from the Japanese one. I haven't taken the time to figure out why until just today. It was easy enough in the past to just always used the Japanese camera to capture HDV content. Well, today I got curious and took a moment to figure out what the problem was. Very simple indeed, just the i.LINK CONV setting was ON when it should have been OFF. Here's what it should look like in the menu:
After making that selection, instead of showing up in CapDVHS's list as "unknown video #1", it shows up as an HDR-HC1. And capturing works great!