Nothing too fancy but compact for taking on long journeys. Budget is £250-350 range and it's to primarily to record 5 months spent in Asia and Australia.

I think DVD will be best so I can send DVDs back home regularly just in the event of anything getting stolen and losing those memories.

I've been looking at Sony and Canon ..but simply dont know what to pick as i've never bought a camcorder before.

Get a mini-dv cam instead, better quality, easier to edit and the minidv cassettes are small enough to send home as well.

Didnt actually realize mini-dv was better quality. Shows how little I know about camcorders. Any further recommendations on model? .. Are Sony/Canon my best bet?

Yes, Sony, canon or Panasonic are all good.

It shows the power of marketing.

I think that people are to be forgiven for thinking that HDD and DVD are better than miniDV. After all, miniDV is old technology right? HDD and DVD have got to be better.

Clever marketing campaigns are quick to point out the 'advances' that HDD and DVD camcorders are making, without revealing the true backward direction they take in terms of both quality and editing ease.

8 out of 10 cameras shown in newspaper full-page ads for the likes of Comet and Currys will be HDD or DVD-based. No wonder these forums receive so many cries for help from their owners.

Yeah, it's like these mac versus pc commercials, they almost had me believe that a mac is better, lukily I know better.