Ok here's the deal, my school just got the dvx100a, new lighting kits ect, and I have a shoot scheduled for next weekend. I was set to use my buddies XL1 but now that the DVX is available well hell yes I want 24p. But since I've picked up that the DVX should be respected as somewhat intricate maybe it would be a bad idea for this shoot to be my first crack at it. With that said I have good experience with the PD-150 and VX's so I'm not without some knowledge on camera operation. The other thing making the decision difficult is the XL1 my friend has is equipped with a few more lens choices and a wide-angle adapter giving me a few more choices with the xl1 but short of the impressive results I've seen from the DVX.

It's a student short about 7mins long with a feeble little budget and two days of shooting so it's not like there’s too much at stake. But honestly I'm leaning toward the DVX as the best way to learn is to just get to work with it and I'd hate to have fear be the reason why I go with the XL1.

Any advice or new perspectives on this good problem?

Don't worry about the lack of lens choices you have with the DVX. It's an excellent camera (and putting the 24p aspect aside) it has a higher resoultion, and greater dynamic range than the XL1. As long as you light the shots well enough, things will look and turn out good. Go with the DVX, good luck.

they're all video cameras, no one is really going to care in the end, so just shoot what you want and make yourself happy.