Camcorder, what type of format should I buy?

At this point, your choices are really just mini-DV, mini- or regular DVD or hard drive. The DVD or hard drive camcorders offer some flexibility, in that you can often delete or edit scenes right on the camcorder before you "finalize" the footage and move it to, say, a standard DVD. HOWEVER, mini-DV is still the format that provides the BEST resolution, AND is more readily editable on a computer, given the lack of compression imposed on the raw footage by the camcorder. In contrast, the DVD and hard drive camcorders all perform some amount of serious compression of the video, which means that a lot of frames of footage often reference other frames of footage to index and repeat, say, that blue sky you've had in background during the kids soccer game you were recording. In short, I'd go for a Sony hi-def mini-DV camcorder (and get the special Sony Hi-Def mini-DV tapes over Amazon in bulk, which significantly reduces their cost), as years from now you'll have the best possible picture with which to work (and likely load onto a Blu-Ray burner by then).