looking for a new camcorder. looking for advice on what format to go for. i.e. mini dvd, dvd, hard disc and so on, whats good, what to avoid.

I have mini dv. Not too impressed with quality. PVR looks good, or mini DVD..

The best format which is still use by Professional is miniDv since it provide the best quality since there is no compresion.You should get Canon GL2DVD is mpeg1 which is a type of compression so the quality is lower than MiniDv but it will be a lot thinner and smaller. Try Panasonic for this kind

For me it is MiniDV everytime.First because it stores the video at much higher quality - so you are off to a better start. MiniDV saves on tape at DVavi quality about as high as you can get in domestic type camcorders. DVD camcorders save video as mpeg which is a compressed format in order to get a decent amount of video on a disc - mpeg video is not particularly easy to edit - although there are a few programmes which make a passable attempt.A MiniDV tape holds an hour of video - most camcorder DVDs only hold 20 minutes - so when you go on holiday you need to carry three times as many DVDs as tapes.It is very easy to transfer from a miniDV to a computer - lots of people have problems with the DVD ones - just search through some of the questions on here..Finally the popular misconception that you cannot view your video instantly with miniDV - RUBBISH - every MiniDV camcorder I have come across can be plugged straight into you TV and your video and shown immediately - you do not have to have a DVD player of a VHS VCR

Well each has its own purpose. If you want to just record video of family and special events and you dont need to edit the footage or record over any of it then mini DVD or just DVD is the way to go. The problems however with both of those formats are they arent very easy to get the footage on to a computer to edit or upload to the internet. Also DVDs take a while to initalize the discs and also to finalize them. However, the DVD formats are ready to just be put into a dvd player. Hard disk while not bad, basicly REQUIRES a computer with a DVD recorder. If you don't transfer the footage to a computer, you will eventually run out of space on the drive if you dont. Plus hard drives break ( just look at how many broken ipods there are) and are sensative to bouncing and jaring. Also some video editing programs like windows movie maker don't support some of the video recording formats used by them. Really the best format is Mini DV. Mini DV is next to hard drive the easiest to inport to the computer and is on a tape system. Although it uses tapes it is all digital and the quality is excellent. In fact mini DV even supports HD camcorders. Mini DV tapes are also small so you can store them if you don't want to edit the footage. Also they last a long time without having to be changed ( 60 to 90 minutes ). Plus Mini DV is the standard for many independant and smaller video production places but is still used for TV and even movies sometimes ( Parts of 28 days later were shot on a Canon XL1, a mini DV camcorder) No matter what I would recomend for a consumer camcorder one of Panasonic's 3ccd camcorders ( see link below ). 3cccds will give you professional video quality (the pros use the same tech.) and a beautiful looking image. Plus they come in DVD and Mini DV formats.