Camera Suggestions...

You want HDD or storage card. OK. What format do you want to use? If you just want YouTube quality then get an Aiptek or something (though HD would be wasted to post on YouTube). If you need better quality and HD for other things -- ask yourself if you want AVCHD (Sony and Panasonic) or something else. Do some research here or on Google re:AVCHD. There are pros and cons (mostly cons in my opinion)

Do some research on the Sanyo Xacti HD1000. It does 720p very nicely already in an h.264 package. It uses SDHC cards for storage (you can get SDHC up to 16GB currently, and hi-speed 8GB is only about $30 if you find one on sale). It can also do 1080i, but most computers have trouble processing 1080i in h264. Too much processing required.

The Aiptek and Sanyo are also pretty small. Maybe you might want something bigger. Maybe look at the JVC HDD camcorders.

Good luck

 

I am in the same spot as you...albeit a light video user and focus more on digital photography.

I am looking at the Canon HF100 (high def) and FS100 (standard def). The FS can still shoot in a 16:9 ratio to fill up that big flat screen, the file sizes are about 1/2 the size of AVCHD files when shot at the highest resolution, battery use is less with flash cameras, it is $500 cheaper that the HF, and editing is a snap in iMovie/FCE.

IMHO I think the FS will be good enough for home video, storage cards are cheap and swappable with my point & shoot camera, and I can store a lot of backup video on a DL-DVD. I am having a hard time justifying the HF at this point. I have no way to burn or play High Def video on my 1080TV and to boot, my understanding is the quality is marginally better than a SD unit (flame away). Unless I have missed something...I just can't see the benefit to a High Def camera at this point.

My strategy is to pick up the following and wait for the technology to change 3-4 times in the next few years....then I will buy the big boy: Instead of $899 HF100, I can have a new Canon G9 camera ($450) and a HF100 ($399) with money left over for an extra SDHC card.

 

You might want to look at the Panasonic AVCHD models. The SD5 is pretty nice, but will likely be hard to find in your price range. It's being replaced by the SD9 which will also be hard to find in your range.

What you might be able to find in your range is the SD1. It's about 1.5 years old, but it's pretty nice. It uses SD and SDHC cards.

Keep in mind that you'll need an Intel Mac to use AVCHD with iMovie'08.

If you're still using iMovieHD (aka iMovie6), you might want to look into a program called Voltaic to convert the AVCHD to AIC.

And you'll want some new hard drives because AIC is huge!

 

I'm waiting for Canon's release of the new flash-memory based VIXIA HF-10 camcorder.

 

AVCHD video quality has always bugged me. whats the point of HD video if you end up with poor, extremely compressed video?

 

Canon HV20 or HV30

According to your price range I would pick up an HV20. They are dirt cheap now. I have used the camera for months now and love it.

I have samples of the footage on my website in the signature. Check out the Visual FX Promo Reels, those were all shot using the Canon HV20. The settings I used were 1080 24P with CineMode ON. And I followed Apple's Doc to convert the footage to True 24P: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306389

Enjoy.