Thread: Need new std def camcorder!

My ageing but very trusty Canon MP4 finally gave up the ghost yesterday, I think it had heard\me and the wife talking about upgrading and couldn't take it!

We have been talking about moving to a HD recorder, however from reading many many threads, you basically get what you pay for and at the moment funds cannot stretch that far for a good HD unit.

We would like to spend around the £300-350 mark on a fairly decent Std. Def camera, but my preferred format would be Mini DV, but there seems to be a severe lack of this media hardware around!

I'd like to be able to squeeze every ounce of quality out of the image and want to record uncompressed onto tape rather than a compressed format onto HDD or SD card.

EDIT: Would also like an external mic socket, as my wife says she can hear me coughing and breathing on a lot of videos!!!!

Any help or recommendations would be appreciated.

Cheers

Tony