If you are looking to shoot video without much re-editing, a DVD camcorder would be preferable for its convenience. You can send and copy rather easily, the media are not too expensive either, you can find them in Target, which is preferable.
If you want to do some fancy editing, adding titles, special effects and such, you would be better off using the traditional miniDV camcorder, so you can preserve better quality. The MPEG compression of DVD would introduce a lot of artifacts to the video, and the resolution is mediocre compared to DV format.
If you are not shooting long videos, I personally favor those MPEG4 camcorders that uses memory stick, SD card and such, they are much smaller, lighter, and uses less battery. An example would this Samsung camcorder:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-IT ... tical/dp/B0000899LSFinally, I have found that video recording is cool to do first, but off the 30 something tapes I have recorded, I have rarely reviewed 10% of them ... so if this is your first camcorder, buy a cheap or used one, if you find it useful, you can upgrade to one that is more catering your needs, with HD camcorder dropping in prices, 3-CCD camcorders getting more consumer friendly, I am sure a less-expensive head start would fit your long-term budget better.
