What is a good camera for making amateur movies, and has an external microphone jack?

VHS is analog. The video quality is not so good. The "DV" in miniDV is "Digital Video". The quality is excellent and is the least compressed video stream - this results in best available video quality. Take the queue from the professionals: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/minisites/HDV/products.shtml http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=172 http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/cat_camcorders.asp They use miniDV tape. If any hard drive is used, it store in DV or HDV format - which is the same as the format used by miniDV tape. NONE of them use DVD based camcorders. What is your budget? In addition to an external mic jack, I suggest that you also try to get manual audio control... The cameras with external mic jacks: Canon ZR950, ZR800 (no manual audio controls) Sony DCR-HC28, HC96 (no manual audio control, but you can switch the mic gain from normal to low to do loud noises like bands without overdriving the audio auto-leveling circuit resulting in a pile of muddy audio. You will also need http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/479976-REG/Sony_VMCK100_VMC_K100_Microphone_Adapter.html so you can use any mic and not just the Sony proprietary mics for the Active Interface shoe.) Canon HV20, HV30; Sony HDR-HC7, HD9 As long as miniDV tape is cheap, provides the least compression (hence best quality), has the best shelf life for long-term storage and is easiest to transfer using firewire (not USB) to a computer for editing, the format will be around... In my book, that is many years...

At this point, mini-dv is the camcorder of choice because it Takes the best quality video. It will be quite a while before the best quality media goes away. The 3CCD Panasonic PV-GS320 is a good buy at around $400 ($380 at Circuit City right now). But does not have an external mic.