What type of camcorder should I buy? HD or SD?

YouTube is in HD now, so you may want to consider it. And it doesn't matter if your COMPUTER can handle HD. It is about the editing SOFTWARE. iMovie HD can handle it. Windows Movie Maker can't. Adobe Premiere can handle it too. Anyway, your monitor also may not be able to handle it, in which case you would simply need to view your stuff on the TV to experience the full HD clarity. Unfortunately, you would need some sort of Blu-Ray burner installed in your computer if you want to edit your stuff for Blu-Ray discs, because your computer wouldn't have that. If you just wanted to post them to YouTube however, you have nothing to worry about except if you have the right software. (It might take a while to upload though.)

With the ability to play full HD then It would be a good idea to maybe get a HD camera, but you will need a blue ray burner, (not that cheap) and disks, again not that cheap, yet. to edit HD video you are going to need a good computer maybe yours is good enough don't know you give no details. HDD and SD media card, both need high end computers with fast cpu and loads of ram, 8gb+ for editing. Mini-dv HD still needs a fast computer but as you are not dealing with highly compressed video then the specs can be a little lower. (but not much) Tape will give you the better quality, all round, forget mini-dvd one thing they are good for is holding doors open, or throwing at a noisy cat (only joking about the cat) A budget would have helped but if you do go for HD then they are obviously more expensive than SD Good luck in you quest RR Added Adobe reccomend 8gb to edit full hd, I run 24gb with twin quad cores and sometimes it struggles, so yes your computer has to be up to it.