Best camera/camcorder or camcorder under $300?

HD camcorder? Or really just not worth the extra 300+ dollars?

• Here is my dilema.. I bought a camcorder (Hard Drive) and I came home and boyfriend said to me I should have gotten HD camcorder so my question is.... is it really going to be that much better/worth it to buy a HD camcorder? I'm going to use it to film home videos (im having a baby), nothing professional. Also with HD i heard its not as easy to convert to DVD.... It is $300-$400 more for the HD camcorder that I want that is similar.

• Answer:

  It's not more difficult to convert HD to DVD, but DVDs aren't HD so there's no point in having an HD camcorder. My concerns with a had drive camcorder are that the footage is relatively difficult to archive and the camcorders themselves are quite fragile - juggling a camcorder and a baby can get tricky, and I'm assuming the camcorder will get dropped first. My first choice would have been MiniDV (watch your bf's face when he realises it's tape based!) for its video quality, robustness and ease of editing / archiving followed by a flash drive camcorder for its robustness.