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Originally Posted by handwrote  My main consideration is the image quality and cost effiency. |
In that case, Mini-DV tape wins hands down. Firstly, Mini-DV is an uncompressed format while HDD based camcorders use MPEG compression in-camera. Secondly, Mini-DV is cheaper.
Yes, it is theoretically quicker and more convenient to use a HDD based camcorder, but in real-world use the difference between importing a DV stream to iMovie or importing MPEG files is not that big of a deal.
That said, read the reviews. There are some great quality bargain Mini-DV cameras around, and some that are sub-par. Brand alone won't help you decide on this one.