HiI’m also fairly new to this industry but I did an intensive research before I bought my camera over 4 months of research.
I feel my 2cents worth would be: go for the Canon, if you think about it technology is not going backwards in time. I think if you buy a DV-only camera you will not be moving forward in time, the whole world is turning to HD. Although HDV is not FULL HD you have your foot in the door already.
Also if that is not enough for you yet, the Canon XH A1 has the most manual controls of them all.
http://www.videomaker.com/article/13174/
I can also supply you with colour presets for the canon that will blow you away, Sonys or Panasonics in that price range cant do the presets for you. One more thing being in photography for over 10 years now, you cant go wrong with Canon lens quality and technology.
Editing will be no problem, I dont know much about Vegas, but Im pretty sure you can play your DV or HDV (down convert) into any editing software and edit it with now problem.
